Wilderness Walk: What Motivated Wild's Comeback Against Rangers

Comeback or no comeback, Dean's got to go. While I haven't been able to watch the NYR game yet, dropping into a 3-0 hole is not a very good start. Based upon Goose2 getting yanked with a .250 sv% may have been the reason. 

Something is going on here that is not good, and the only area where I can point my finger is a coaching staff that refuses to practice and work the players. All teams go through adversity at different times during the season. The way out is to buckle down and work harder, and get everyone on the same page. 

Coming back from a road trip that was a short 3/4 and saying you need 2 days off and a brief practice the 3rd day, after pretty much being unsuccessful and looking woeful, is not the way to fix things. 

In other news, I'd like a job where I don't really have to do anything and can just show up in a coat and tie and get a great view of a hockey game from right behind the bench. Maybe I'll even get a chance to yell at a guy wearing stripes! 

Dean's got to go.

That was the best 60 minutes of hockey I have seen the Wild play this year.  Was a hard fought victory of a pretty darn good team with a solid defense.  I couple of notes I took away from the game.  

1)  Faber is really good.  His first few steps are fast and he doesn't make many mistakes.

2)  Rossi is not only fitting in but starting to excel.  His hockey IQ seems off the charts.

3)  Middleton had his best game.  We are a better team when the D are willing to engage on offense.

4)  I've never kicked on Merrill.  I've always considered him a 3rd pairing D man that doesn't typically get into too much trouble.  He didn't play... and we didn't seem to miss him.... at all.   

58 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

Comeback or no comeback, Dean's got to go. While I haven't been able to watch the NYR game yet, dropping into a 3-0 hole is not a very good start. Based upon Goose2 getting yanked with a .250 sv% may have been the reason. 

Something is going on here that is not good, and the only area where I can point my finger is a coaching staff that refuses to practice and work the players. All teams go through adversity at different times during the season. The way out is to buckle down and work harder, and get everyone on the same page. 

Right now the Bus is only firing on 5 cylinders, after pulling him in the shop for Fleury the team woke up and completely dominated the Rags the rest of the game. If the Wild play their game the way they did Saturday night they can beat any team in the league. The issue is being able to do it consistently.

I have a feeling unless things go extremely south Dean will make it the rest of the season. There's no secret that Dean is a players coach, his style is more of a laissez faire approach where he trusts the players to right the ship (for better or worse). He does need to push these guys a little harder and it sounds like he's been doing that after the 2nd Devils loss. As much as we would like to see Dean-O yanked I just don't think it'll happen this season.

When Spurgeon returns, the Wild could go on a bit of a run. They are scoring plenty of goals to win if they can lock things down on defense. Middleton is especially in need of Spurgeon's return.

The goals against average is currently over 4.25 after finishing last season just under 2.75.  They had a rough start last season(5-5-1 through 11 games), but they've given up 7 more goals through 11 games this year than they did last season.

Haven't hated the job Dean has done. The players are the ones on the ice so there's a argument pro players should know how to play and need to execute.

At the same time face offs, and special teams have been brutal costing wins. There's been an appearance of fault on certain players becoming a trend that only coaches can remedy. 

MN has had poor starts ending in good seasons before. Thanksgiving is benchmark one. By then, the Wild should be getting going or watch out cause OCL and Guerin are trying to win now. 

Faber Halloween - Faber was “Squints” from the movie “The Sandlot” and his girlfriend was crush Wendy Peffercorn.

1 hour ago, MNCountryLife said:

Faber is really good.  His first few steps are fast and he doesn't make many mistakes.

Brocktoberfest

PK still needs to be fixed.  PP looked awesome without Addison.

Pushing the rev-limiter when you're running on high-Brocktane.

If the Wild are making you crazy, perhaps you should undergo electric-Brock treatment?

If you wanna secure the d-zone, wrap it up with a heavy chain and a pad-Brock.

Chuck Knaw-Brock.

1 hour ago, Will D. Ness said:

PK still needs to be fixed.  PP looked awesome without Addison.

Wonder if when the Wild do practice, the PK sucks and it fools everyone into thinking the PP is fire? Then when the game comes surprise, the special teams all stink.

So, this is not really related to hockey, but it is related a little bit.

My son invited me to Atlanta to go to the Vikings game (he lives in Atlanta) and got some tickets from season holder friends. We sat in the lower bowl, section 116 which is right on an endzone corner. The seats were really, really good, angled well so that you could see most everything. 

There was a ton of purple in the stands. The last time I'd been to a game here was when it was in the Georgia Dome. This Mercedes Benz Stadium was really, really nice. They had the roof open which is just a circle on top, but on the day it was low 70s and a calm breeze would come through quite often. 

So, here's the part I wanted to mention. They have something called budget food pricing. You could get $2 hot dogs, $3 pizza slices, and a cup of soda for $2 with free refill stations all over the stadium. I must have refilled 4 times. The food was decent, but you wouldn't normally expect the prices so low. You can get the gourmet food if you want it at some stations, but it was a really nice experience to look out for the regular guys.

The other observations are game related. Hall got hammered on the goal line try and you could see his head snap back and hit the turf. Osborn was crumpled while I was getting my $3 pizza slices. I saw it on the tv screen while in line, and never got a replay, after the hit the screen went offline. I assume they went straight to commercial when on tv. Then came Dobbs.

This might have been the best game I've seen coached and O'Connell deserves a tremendous amount of credit. He had a handful of plays which Dobbs could run. His challenge and then subsequent talking over what the referees saw and lifting the flag was very good. But, getting plays in and out, getting something for Dobbs to work with when he did not know the terminology or the playbook well, and deciphering into terms Dobbs could understand was amazing. They didn't waste timeouts either. 

It took Dobbs a couple of series to get comfortable. But once he did, momentum built. Flores constantly had his defense (while the offense was on the field) back on the teams bench and the coaches were tutoring the players hard. The opposite was true when the defense was on the field, and there was a lot of in game adjustments being made for Dobbs. Dobbs fumbled a snap, considering he hadn't taken any last week, one would think that was truly amazing. The stadium also was quite loud. How they were able to communicate is beyond me, especially in the last minute where the Atlanta fans were yelling hard. They were really pissed about the outcome.

Why should I bring this up on a hockey blog? Because coaching is coaching and hard work is hard work. Regardless of how the Vikings' season turns out this year, this staff is working hard. They overcame everything that was put in front of them. This is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for in our Wild coaches. Teaching, reinforcing, adjusting, working hard, practicing hard. This is what I don't see in Dean Evason also. 

Most of what we see with hockey won't happen on the bench, it will happen in between periods and at practice/video sessions. However, it would be nice to see the forward's coach and the defense's coach sometimes be talking more on the bench to the players and getting them adjusted. The PP and PK coach, really, has to do that in between periods or tv timeouts. 

Vonlonster had season tickets and would talk about how Fiala, outside of the cameras would constantly throw tantrums. There's a lot to see when you attend games that we miss on tv. Maybe there are other season ticket holders on here who can speak of this? It would be nice to hear what they are talking about in the bench area too if anyone is close enough.

12 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

Hall got hammered on the goal line try and you could see his head snap back and hit the turf. Osborn was crumpled while I was getting my $3 pizza slices. I saw it on the tv screen while in line, and never got a replay, after the hit the screen went offline.

Yes, Osborn was motionless on the field for several seconds before they showed 1 replay that didn't allow you to see the full extent of the hit, then they promptly went to commercial. Nice to see him looking alert on the cart, but fully expect both Hall and Osborn to miss the next game(avoiding another major impact soon after initial injury is important).

Nice description of your game day experience!

I'm not certain if the continuous action of hockey lends itself to coaching in the same way, but I'm sure the coaches are commenting at times during the game. I imagine the most impactful coaching during NHL games often happens between periods where you wouldn't be able to see it.

Other than the continuous play aspect, where all players are playing offense and defense and need to be ready for their next shift at a moments notice, it can be legitimately dangerous to not be following the puck during an NHL game.

53 minutes ago, mnfaninnc said:

They have something called budget food pricing. You could get $2 hot dogs, $3 pizza slices, and a cup of soda for $2 with free refill stations all over the stadium.

As long as you're willing to spend $500 to get into the stadium we'll accept only a 500% mark up on the $0.25 cost on soda - Billionaire Owner's

That is great that Atlanta is making this gesture (better than nothing), but if cig tax, casino tax, lottery tax, etc are a regressive tax what the hell are pro sports?

Answer: a regressive tax.  But Pewter it's a choice fans are making with their own money, free country blah blah.  It's also a choice Kenny is making to smoke and gamble. Why are we hot and bothered by Kenny pissing away his kids lunch money on blackjack but Kenny is a loyal fan if junior's lunch money goes toward Kenny's next $18 king can of Coors Light.  Casino XYZ just doesn't have a mascot yet.

#HottakeMonday

On this topic, it's time to pass the hat for a new T-Wolves stadium.  

2 hours ago, Pewterschmidt said:

On this topic, it's time to pass the hat for a new T-Wolves stadium.  

No

These games can be a positive in that they show that you cant give up theres a chance if you keep pressing .