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  • Wild Crush Islanders As Fleury Breaks Record

    Image courtesy of © Brace Hemmelgarn-USA TODAY Sports
    Thomas Williams

    By Thomas Williams -

    It seemed like the Minnesota Wild would never win a single game ever again. Painful loss after painful loss, the season began slipping away from them and while mathematically, it will be a very steep hill to climb for the Wild to reach the postseason, it's not impossible and the display that they had against the New York Islanders gives us some confidence.

    Plainly, the Wild stomped the Islanders into some frozen Minnesota ground. A miraculous three power-play goals led the way as the Wild earned a 5-0 victory. Joel Eriksson Ek netted two goals, and Marcus Foligno and Mats Zuccarello each scored a goal and earned an assist. It was a total team effort with a 40-21 shots on goal advantage -- and there was a good reason.

    Marc-Andre Fleury now, with this 21-save shutout win, was earned 552 victories in the NHL, surpassing Patrick Roy for second all-time in league history. Martin Brodeur sits at the top of the list with 691, so Fleury will just need to stick around for four to six more years to contest for that. He can play into his mid-40s, right?

    That's Wild

    • We all know that the Wild aren't tanking and that these losses are mainly piling up because of injuries to key players, but, can the Wild truly afford to not tank at this stage? Shouldn't they try to use this one terrible start of a season to just attempt to get some game-breaking talent and make the whole team better? [Hockey Wilderness]
    • In case you missed the game, it featured both Kirill Kaprizov and Jonas Brodin back to full health. The only player now that is out is Jared Spurgeon, and he was put on LTIR which means he won't be back until Jan. 27 at the earliest. [The Hockey News]
    • GM Bill Guerin spoke with the media yesterday and he is more than confident that this Wild team can still make the postseason. He's not giving up (largely because he created this team with its flaws). [NHL dot com]

    Off the trail...

    • Which teams in the Western Conference should really just blow it all up? [Daily Faceoff]
    • Bold predictions for the second half of the NHL season. [ESPN]
    • The rosters for the PWHL All-Star showcase have been set and an NHL player will be featured in the festivities. [NHL dot com]
    By Thomas Williams  

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    Protec

    Beating teams from outside the division is great and all but the Wild have only won a couple against STL and NSH while getting whomped by DAL, ARI, WPG, COL. 

    They're getting healthy again so that's good but I am not certain I wanna see them climb out of the hole again. The groundwork has been laid. I'd like to see the Wild get a top player in the draft for once. 

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    B1GKappa97
    38 minutes ago, Protec said:

    They're getting healthy again so that's good but I am not certain I wanna see them climb out of the hole again. The groundwork has been laid. I'd like to see the Wild get a top player in the draft for once. 

    We know how this ends. 

    #10 in the conference, no playoff spot and only a 3% chance to sneak into the top-10 of the draft lolol

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    mnfaninnc

    This was the most complete game the Wild have played all season. Congratulations to them. Will there be consistency? I have no idea. This will be a very tough 3 game road trip.

    Guerin's press conference was very lame, he should have just stayed in his GM office. Essentially, there's a lot of hockey left to be played and he fully believes we can snap out of this. Nobody cares about our troubles. 

    Now that Fleury is in 2nd place all time for wins, could his next item on the list be to compete for a cup? I do not believe he will get that opportunity here, so, he will need to choose another destination. My understanding is that several teams in the hunt are looking for goaltending help. This is even to the point where Markstrom is being considered. (he also has an NMC) 

    These next 6 games will determine what we do, IMO. For me, I'm kind of hoping for the high draft pick. While I believe the rebuild is pretty much over, you can never have too many really good prospects. It would be nice to get a solid boost with a couple of more nice ones in the fold. Results always lag, so, perhaps as we transition, there will be a couple of lulls in our overall point production for standings. That isn't all bad.

    It was nice to see Fleury get the SO, it was also nice to see him do it on a very light shot night and at home. Congratulations!

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    mnfaninnc

    In other news, Diamond Sports has managed to turn cash cows into bankruptcy and talks are ongoing with them about the Twins and '24. There is speculation that they won't be around for anything in '25. 

    What are you guys hearing up there about Diamond and the Wild? For review, Fox Sports regional stations were purchased by Disney, but then had to be spun off because Disney owned ESPN. Diamond then bought them at a discount for what Disney paid, and ran them into the ground. Could ESPN take over some of the regional packages? I'd love to have both Twins and Wild games on ESPN+

    For me, I thought Diamond took over, took Bally's money to put their name on the channel and then put in the exact same tired Fox Sports production adding nothing new. They could have put some of their own ideas in but didn't. So what they ended up with was a very stale product. I am not a fan of Diamond or Sinclair, their broadcasting parent company. 

    Several regional sports teams use Comcast. I wonder if they are even players in the Twin Cities market? I would think with this trouble, the whole landscape is about to change.

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    Protec

    How bout worldwide conglomerates quit buying up all the rights to everythingand then screwing it up so everything is blacked out or impossible to watch.

    I would love to see smaller local or regional companies take things important to their markets and do a good job with it. Can you even imagine such a simple idea these days?

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    Will D. Ness
    1 hour ago, B1GKappa97 said:

    We know how this ends. 

    #10 in the conference, no playoff spot and only a 3% chance to sneak into the top-10 of the draft lolol

    Without FO intervention, this is probably the case.  

    With that said, what can the FO do that wouldn't poison the well that has been the cornerstone of what the FO is trying to build here?

    I just don't see it and I think we are pipe dreaming here salivating a top 5 pick.  

     

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    MrCheatachu

    I've never been able to get really into the different prospects, but I've heard rumblings that this is going to be a defense heavy draft.  What I've not heard, is if there are going to be guys in this draft who are going to make an immediate impact.

    Even if we some how get into a top-5 position, that doesnt mean the calvary is going to show up to bail us out next season...

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    B1GKappa97
    35 minutes ago, MrCheatachu said:

    I've never been able to get really into the different prospects, but I've heard rumblings that this is going to be a defense heavy draft.  What I've not heard, is if there are going to be guys in this draft who are going to make an immediate impact.

    Even if we some how get into a top-5 position, that doesnt mean the calvary is going to show up to bail us out next season...

    Most prospects don't immediately play with their club. Obviously there's exceptions like Bedard, but generally its a 2 year on-ramp to the NHL. Especially with this FO. 

    Which is fine. Next year Goose's contract is up, so it'll free up a spot for a guy like Hunt to get some experience with Lambos serving the Mermis role. Then its Merril's turn to leave the next year and that's likely the time we'd see our 2024 rookie hit the lineup if we're drafting one in the top-10. 

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    Up North Guy
    8 minutes ago, B1GKappa97 said:

    Most prospects don't immediately play with their club. Obviously there's exceptions like Bedard, but generally its a 2 year on-ramp to the NHL. Especially with this FO. 

    Which is fine. Next year Goose's contract is up, so it'll free up a spot for a guy like Hunt to get some experience with Lambos serving the Mermis role. Then its Merril's turn to leave the next year and that's likely the time we'd see our 2024 rookie hit the lineup if we're drafting one in the top-10. 

    I thought Hunt looked pretty good last night. He needs NHL ice time badly. I would be overjoyed to see Merrill and Goose in the ProssBox the rest of the way. I know Merrill can be waived and sent to Iowa but I am not sure what that does for/to the team's cap. 

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    B1GKappa97
    6 minutes ago, Up North Guy said:

    I thought Hunt looked pretty good last night. He needs NHL ice time badly. I would be overjoyed to see Merrill and Goose in the ProssBox the rest of the way. I know Merrill can be waived and sent to Iowa but I am not sure what that does for/to the team's cap. 

    Yeah I'd assume its more likely to be Goose who ends up getting scratched more than Merrill. Agreed on Hunt. I think next year will be when he really gets an ample opportunity though.

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