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  • We Still Don't Know Who the Wild Are


    Image courtesy of Matt Krohn-USA TODAY Sports
    Sean Flick

     

    The Minnesota Wild have played 58 games, have 24 games remaining, and are 4 points behind the Nashville Predators for the final playoff spot. Still, they continue to consistently leave folks wondering, What is the identity of this team? It’s nice that they’ve gone 7-1-1 since the All-Star break. However, their last three games on the road didn’t help me find this team’s identity.

    In the Winnipeg Jets game, I saw a team that appeared to be lollygagging. They allowed the Jets to go up 2-0, including a power play. Jacob Middleton also coughed up a turnover right in front of Marc-Andre Fleury, who kept Winnipeg’s lead at 2-0 by making the save. The Wild had too many turnovers, and it seemed like they were going through the motions. 

    Minnesota and Winnipeg each had six penalties, and they both scored twice with the man advantage. However, if you take those goals out of the final score, the Jets would have won 4-1. Winnipeg’s backup goalie, Laurent Brossoit, didn’t have to work too hard, squaring himself to the puck all 39 times the Wild shot. Unfortunately for Fleury, the guys in front of him weren’t boxing opponents out. The Jets screened him on most shots, which led to a couple of goals he could’ve stopped had he seen the puck coming at him.

    But the Wild looked like an entirely different team three days later against the Edmonton Oilers, a highly capable offensive team. Minnesota was swarming Edmonton’s puck carriers all night. The Oilers requested a review of the Wild’s first goal, which got overturned on an offsides call. It was the result of an over-anxious Kirill Kaprizov. Although, I suppose if you don’t try to push a rush into the offensive zone, you’ll never know if you’ll get called. 

    Minnesota’s first official goal was the reason that I feel hockey is a beautiful game. It started with Brock Faber playing great defense. He played the puck up the boards in front of the Edmonton wing to Joel Eriksson Ek, who was anticipating it and made the smart pass to Jake Middleton at the top of the defensive zone. Middleton then tflippedthe puck through the neutral zone to an open Matt Boldy at the top of the right face-off circle.

    Boldy turned to the center of the zone and ripped a wrister past Edmonton goalie Calvin Pickard. Total. Team. Effort. 

     

    Even Filip Gustavsson was at his best. He was seeing the puck all game, partially because a bunch of Edmonton’s players weren’t in front of the net, blocking his vision. Aside from the two power-play goals he gave up, the Oilers hit him in the logo on his sweater most of the night. It indicated that he was square to the puck -- on 43 shots, no less. The Wild didn’t have happy feet, flying around the ice aimlessly. They were playing their game and not panicking while staying within their system. 

    The next night? More of the same. After Vince Dunn started the scoring off with a left post clanker that went in, the Wild scored five unanswered goals in Seattle. They scored on two of their six power plays. However, Minnesota put the Seattle Kraken on the man advantage five times, which I’m sure John Hynes took exception to. But it’s always a positive sign when the Wild get four assists from Mats Zuccarello. On one of them, Zuccarello and Kaprizov appeared to play catch behind Seattle’s net until Kirill saw he could sneak it past goaltender Joey Daccord

     

    It was impressive. Kaprizov’s second goal chased Daccord. Philipp Grubauer replaced Daccord, and it was 5-1 after the second period. It would have stayed that way if Jordan Eberle had not scored a fluke of a goal.

    Of Minnesota’s final 24 games, they have six games they should win: Two against the Anaheim Ducks, three against the San Jose Sharks, and one against the Chicago Blackhawks. The rest are 50/50 or worse odds, teams fighting for playoff positioning. Can the Wild maintain their 75% point winning percentage after the All-Star break? Considering they are on a 53% point winning percentage for the season? That’s a tall order. Could they do it and maintain it until the playoffs? Sure. (Thank you, Captain Obvious.) 

    However, considering that we don’t know what team will show up from one night until the next? We’ll see.

     

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    They are a small and old middling team. their identity has been a team with no identity since the beginning. This team is going nowhere unless it adopts a completely different way of doing things.

    i hope ppl stop giving this organization money until management decides they want to win a cup instead of turning a profit by barely making it into the playoffs each year.

     

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    This may sound a bit optimistic... and it probably is..  We have a solid 1st line.  Our D core when fully healthy with Spurge, Brodin, Faber and Mid is very capable.  We need at least 1 more defender that can play top 2 pairing when someone like Spurge goes down.... and lines 2 through 4 need some offensive punch somewhere in that lineup.   I'm actually quite hopeful that this team next year will get a few players in that provide that depth scoring and Spurge will be back.  

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    31 minutes ago, Mateo3xm said:

    i hope ppl stop giving this organization money until management decides they want to win a cup instead of turning a profit by barely making it into the playoffs each year.

    They're still trying to win a cup though? I mean they've completely overhauled the prospect pool, we've had Kaprizov, Boldy, and now Faber/Rossi all in Calder Trophy discussions for 3 out of the last 4 seasons.. They added a HoF goalie who's taken teams to the Cup, they've got another top-6 talent in Russia, they have one of the best goalie prospects seasoning in the AHL with no need to rush him before he's ready. 

    The FO has done a great job setting up a foundation and in a couple years they're going to have $13M more in cap-space to use to further boost a playoff roster... 

    I mean seriously, what else do you want them to do? 

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    NoJo really drives me nuts.  I want him gone.  He is not fun to watch... he is a momentum killer.  Why is he on our 2nd line?  The only position he has earned is the Pross Box.  He played 15:21 minutes last night.  He was 5th in minutes.  Why?  He skates the puck into traffic and loses it.  His passes are rarely crisp and on the stick. His D-zone play consists of taking up space while players  easily walk around him.  He isn't physical and rarely wins a puck battle.  He doesn't belong in the lineup much less the 2nd line and 15+ minutes.  Nojo is one of the players that is really hurting this team.  Opposing team go after him because he does not understand how to open up lanes and ice for teammates.  Get rid of him.  Please!

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    11 minutes ago, MNCountryLife said:

    NoJo really drives me nuts.  I want him gone.  He is not fun to watch... he is a momentum killer.  Why is he on our 2nd line?  The only position he has earned is the Pross Box.  He played 15:21 minutes last night.  He was 5th in minutes.  Why?  He skates the puck into traffic and loses it.  His passes are rarely crisp and on the stick. His D-zone play consists of taking up space while players  easily walk around him.  He isn't physical and rarely wins a puck battle.  He doesn't belong in the lineup much less the 2nd line and 15+ minutes.  Nojo is one of the players that is really hurting this team.  Opposing team go after him because he does not understand how to open up lanes and ice for teammates.  Get rid of him.  Please!

    New nojo drinking game: 1) drink entire beer when he does a water ski back check 2) take a shot when he drops his stick 3) full beer when he misses an open net

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    24 minutes ago, viper3119 said:

    K-NUT IS SIGNED! 2 YEAR ELC

    LFG!!!  Cannot wait to see deez nuts in action.   Expecting a Rossi type skater with a Zuc type pass first mentality

    Edited by Pewterschmidt
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    5 hours ago, Willy the poor boy said:

    Can't wait till MnFan checks in to tell us how much weight he needs to gain. 😄

    I think I read 5'11" 176lbs, so adding a bit of muscle certainly wouldn't hurt.  Rossi still gets flung around a bit and could use another off-season of work.  Hope he gets in Khusnutdinov's ear a bit about it.

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    13 hours ago, raithis said:

    I think I read 5'11" 176lbs, so adding a bit of muscle certainly wouldn't hurt.  Rossi still gets flung around a bit and could use another off-season of work.  Hope he gets in Khusnutdinov's ear a bit about it.

    Ya, I was just having fun. I knew Dino was on the slighter side, so I figured part of MnFan's plan would be for him to add weight...

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    On 2/28/2024 at 3:34 PM, Willy the poor boy said:

    Can't wait till MnFan checks in to tell us how much weight he needs to gain. 😄

    Check another thread, I did not disappoint you guys. 5'11" 176 was shown on the screen in last night's broadcast. He's grown 2" since we drafted him. I think that's the same as Petrovsky grew. He's also put on 11 lbs. 

    I still would like to see him up a little higher in weight, but that is just an estimate since he hasn't weighed in over here yet. I anticipate he and Rossi being workout buddies this summer!

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    To answer Sean's question, though, I think we do know what type of team we are: A middling team competitive against less teams than last year. We are somewhere in the 16-22 rankings which would say we compete well against teams in the lower half of the league, but struggle with inconsistency against teams in the upper half of the league. 

    Goaltending is spotty, defense is leaky, offense shows up 2/3rds of the time. 

    IMO, that type of team should be a transition team where a lot of kids are going to get valuable NHL experience down the stretch. 

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    I know what this team is... it is a choke fest.  Every big game this year after climbing back into contention, this team lays an egg on the ice.

    Are we that fragile?  Can we not handle pressure?  

    It's not just the young guys either.  Vets need to step up in games like this and nobody did.  Hartman looked lost out there.  Freddy was fumbling the puck.  NoJo looked like he always does... worthless.  Was Zucc even on the ice?

    Top line was taken out WAY too easily.  PP looked sloppy.  Defense was sloppy. 

    What the hell?

    This team has an identity... it is  a one trick pony with no discipline and a mental fragility.

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    On 2/29/2024 at 6:45 AM, Fezig said:

    History indicates the Wild are what MN teams are...good enough to not be bad and bad enough to not be good.

    Fezig coming in strong with the truth-bomb to summarize the entire Wild existence. 😁

     

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