Wild Call Out Connor McDavid For Dirty Play

6 hours ago, M_Nels said:

This is a point I do not agree on whatsoever.

We don't need to go gooning it up every game just to prove a point and risking suspensions and penalties while we're still shorthanded, our PK is still bottom tier and we're in the thick of a Central race that is still up for grabs by 4 teams.

the point was never about becoming a team of goons. the point was to construct a balance lineup that protects your skilled players. what is the problem here? you want to see how far a lineup of Kap Zuccy Rossi Boldy Ek and MJ takes you as your top 6? not very far in the PO. But to tweak it a bit and inject muscle and some mean streak and you got something. Do you think Kap will be a target if he'll have Ek and Tuch on his line? or would Rossi be a target if we line him up next to Boldy and Tuch? At this point - it's a must that we protect Kap and we have to update the top 6. 

24 minutes ago, OldDutchChip said:

the point was never about becoming a team of goons. the point was to construct a balance lineup that protects your skilled players. what is the problem here? you want to see how far a lineup of Kap Zuccy Rossi Boldy Ek and MJ takes you as your top 6? not very far in the PO. But to tweak it a bit and inject muscle and some mean streak and you got something. Do you think Kap will be a target if he'll have Ek and Tuch on his line? or would Rossi be a target if we line him up next to Boldy and Tuch? At this point - it's a must that we protect Kap and we have to update the top 6. 

I know your point and I can repeat it almost verbatim off memory now and I don’t necessarily disagree with the premise. I was replying to mnfan who suggested we start running guys every game until our reputation changes. 

10 hours ago, M_Nels said:

I was replying to mnfan who suggested we start running guys every game until our reputation changes. 

But, Nelly, this is what it takes to change a narrative. Players around the league talk and view plays. If the narrative, which is accurate, is that this is a soft team who will merely complain to referees when people are mean or cheap to them and won't actually do anything about it, it encourages other teams to be mean or cheap and throw them off their game.

The only thing that changes that is if the team changes that perception. You don't change that perception by trading for Reaves or signing Trenin, it requires actual action. The point has to be emphasized, and there must be some consistency there. 

What you don't want is for the talk to be, "oh, Foligno lost his mind this game." You want the talk to be "the Wild had a complete meltdown," or "the Wild have become hard to play against." And further down the line, what you'd like to see is the talk being "don't poke the bear." (or in our case the bear-man-pig 😎).

So, for the short term, as a team you have to emphasize the point that this is how we're playing now. If you pick on one of us, your whole team is at risk of retaliation to a greater extent. And, you need to do this until it gets around the league, "oh, we go to the X where it will be a really tough game." Building up banked points helps when injuries hit, and they hit especially hard when you're down $13m in cap space. However, it also affords you to take care of things like this narrative where it doesn't hurt you too bad. 

Think back to the Dumba-M. Tkachuk incident. Late in the game, Dumba does Dumba things and runs a Calgary player. The next game which was a short distance in time later, he has to answer the bell to M. Tkachuk. Following that, the narrative around here was Calgary had a big heavy team and you didn't want to poke the bear and wake them up. They were feared. M. Tkachuk outweighed Dumba by some 30 lbs. and had about 4"s on him. Dumba was having a fabulous season and this event actually wrecked his career. After this, his shot was never the same. 

I don't want anyone to wreck a guys career, but the current perception of other teams when they face us is that we're soft. Even Trenin alluded to that before he came here. The other perception is that we're disciplined and will only whine about cheap shots taken at them. This type of perception gets your team injured. 

On another note, since narrative and perception is being discussed, we also have the perception of being a boring team. Visually we are boring until the '78s come on. I know it's like a broken record, but changing visually the uniform will help change the perception. We need that. 

On 1/17/2025 at 10:15 PM, OldDutchChip said:

the point was never about becoming a team of goons. the point was to construct a balance lineup that protects your skilled players. what is the problem here? you want to see how far a lineup of Kap Zuccy Rossi Boldy Ek and MJ takes you as your top 6? not very far in the PO. But to tweak it a bit and inject muscle and some mean streak and you got something. Do you think Kap will be a target if he'll have Ek and Tuch on his line? or would Rossi be a target if we line him up next to Boldy and Tuch? At this point - it's a must that we protect Kap and we have to update the top 6. 

Although last night's retribution game was blacked out (at least for me), the final game summary forced me to realize a few things.  The Wild are not balanced, which will be even more exposed at PO time (if applicable).  The Wild focused on that retribution, but didn't have the muscle to create the necessary effect.  The Wild became obsessed with payback, and mentally their head wasn't in the game.  This was to an inferior team (although is it really "the Wild" when half of our paycheck isn't even on the ice?).  The Wild cannot play dominating hockey AND dominating physicality.  It simple isn't there.  And as ODC points out, it's also not in the pipeline.  The entire league knows they can push around the Wild, get under their skin, and conquer.  This won't sit well come PO time without some balance.  

On 1/17/2025 at 2:27 PM, OldDutchChip said:

McDavid took out MJ - this was a top 6 player vs top 6 player. If MJ has the support of ..... let's say a Tkachuk or Stone or Landeskog or Tuch - i'd argue that McDavid would have thought twice about doing what he did.

Must've missed his crosscheck this weekend that's going to lead to a hefty fine & long suspension most likely. He obviously didn't think twice about that even with Myers, Soucy, Joshua, Forbort, Heinien and a few other big boys.