Minnesota Wild – Page 5 – Faxes from Uncle Dale

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Game #55 – Hawks vs. Wild Spotlight: Fletcher, Bearing Down On Me…

By Sam Fels February 10, 2018 1741 0

Being a GM in this league isn’t easy. You have exactly no margin for error, and you have to take that and balance the desires of owner, coaches, fans, press, and try and craft a hockey team out of it. You can do all that, and then there just might be two teams in your division better than you anyway and it’s all for naught. And then once you come up empty, the league does not make it easy to start over. Flexibility is a daft concept in the NHL.

And that’s where Minnesota GM Chuck Fletcher finds himself. Perhaps it was his idea to sign Ryan Suter and Zach Parise until the sun swallows us all for a dump truck of money. Perhaps it was a directive from the owner after having nondescript, unsuccessful teams forever under Jacques Lemaire. Whatever it was, Fletcher is pretty much fucked right now. Which might see him let go this summer when his contract runs out as well.

The Wild aren’t going anywhere. They’re locked into competing for the last wild card spot at best this year. Maybe, if things bounce right, they sneak in, Dubnyk gets hot, and they can win a round or two. But that’s all built on hope, and Dubnyk has never shined in the playoffs. The difference between him and Jay Gallon last year is the biggest reason they didn’t move to the second round then.

And really, Fletcher is locked into bringing this team back next year. There’s no significant money coming off the books. Chris Stewart, Matt Cullen, and Daniel Winnik are the only forwards whose deals are up after this season, for just north of $3 million. There are no d-men who are up. And to make it even better, Jason Zucker and Matt Dumba are restricted free agents this summer. Because they’re RFAs they won’t break the bank, but they’ll be due more than the $4.5 million combined they make now (Dumba could reasonably ask for that himself).

So what do you do? This Wild team still needs a #1 center before it can even think of going anywhere, and those cost north of $8 million or more. No one is going to trade for those Parise or Suter deals, and Parise might be permanently broken after back surgery and just five points in 15 games so far. Nino Neiderreiter or Mikael Granlund would certainly drum up interest around the league, but if you trade them for a forward aren’t you just running in place? You’re supposed to build around guys like that.

You could hope that someone takes Mikko Koivu off your hands, but no one wants to pay near $6 million for two more years for what is essentially a checking center now. The window to trade Jonas Brodin has probably passed. Maybe Luke Kunin is a kid who can do something for you, but if he were something special we’d probably know by now. Dmitri Sokolov is lighting up the OHL, but everyone lights up the OHL. And because the Wild have floated around the bottom of the playoff picture for so long, it’s really hard to find help in the draft in the 15-20 range as they’ve been.

If it wasn’t so punitive, buyouts would be an option here. But because they’re spread out for so long, it’s not an option for Parise or Koivu, and wouldn’t provide that much relief. It should be something that the player doesn’t have to agree to but doesn’t punish the team so harshly if they agree. But that’s not the world we live in.

This is the devil in “going for it.” The Wild thought the signing of Parise and Suter meant they were amongst the big boys. They haven’t seen a conference final or a division championship. And now the Wild can’t even tear it down if they wanted to. If they traded Granlund and/or Neiderreiter, at that point you might as well keep going. Sell off Coyle and Staal and try in include Koivu in something. But when have you seen a team do that?

Parise and Suter have been on the Wild for six seasons now. That’s about the cycle every team gets. But thanks to the system, the Wild are stuck in this one, going nowhere, with no escape. Basically, they’re living your life.

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Game #55 – Hawks vs. Wild Q&A: Ben Remington, Who’s Delighted We’ll Leave Him Alone Now

By Sam Fels February 10, 2018 2524 0

Ben Remington is one half of Giles And The Goalie podcast, and ZoneCoverageMN.com. Follow him on Twitter @BenRemington.

How big is Jonas Brodin’s injury?
I mean it’s not a small deal, but I’m not super convinced it’s a huge deal either. Brodin had been better lately, but was otherwise having a pretty bad season, after he was protected in the Expansion Draft. It means more ice time for the young offensive dynamo/defensively challenged Mike Reilly, which I’m not opposed to. Gustav Olofsson is almost a Brodin clone, and he’ll slide into the second pair, and I think it’ll be alright.

Injuries have really hampered this team, but they really can’t use Brodin’s injury as yet another crutch, given his body of work this season.

There was some talk that Eric Staal would be on the trade block before the deadline. Where did that come from?

No sure, exactly. Is HFboards still around?

I mean, logically it makes a little sense, if the Wild were to decide to sell. He’s got a year left on an incredible contract, and teams would be salivating over that. It’ll be interesting to see if there’s any kind of push to re-sign him, because he’s hitting his mid 30’s, probably due a huge pay raise, and the Wild seem to have some in house centers they want to give more time to eventually. I wouldn’t be shocked to see him dealt, but the return better curl my toes and expose my O face. It’s crazy to think about shipping out your best player without trying to re-sign him, but if you have a pretty good idea that you won’t be able to afford him anyway, there are worse courses of action, I suppose.

Matt Dumba has 19 points in his last 29 games. Is this finally his arrival?

I think so. He got off to a slow start but has really been solid generating offense for most of the season, which is why so many of us wanted him protected over Brodin. He’s only 23, and has shown some incredible stuff that has somewhat outweighed the occasional miscue. I think he’s just scratching the surface on offense, and with his shot could be a Burns-Lite (or even full flavor, who knows).

What are the Wild going to do before the deadline? They have to at least push it, right?

I think so, but I’m not expecting much, given their dire cap situation. The big contracts aren’t going anywhere, so anything beyond getting a bottom 6 forward type I’d be surprised by. I’m also a little terrified of Chuck Fletcher making a blockbuster deal at the deadline, since he’s on the last year of his contract and there’s tons of uncertainty on if he’ll be back.

There’s been talk of them unloading Foligno, which is hilarious given what they paid for him and the contract they gave him. By hilarious I mean depressing, but I’d also be almost as happy about as when they fired Kyle Quincey into the sun.

Where do the Wild go after this season? They’re kind of contractually committed to this group but it’s getting older. Is this cycle complete?

Ha, well, yeah, I think? I think they’ll keep taking puncher’s chances at the playoffs every year with this core, but it’s hard to see them doing any real damage unless something drastic happens. Dubnyk is the type of goalie to get red hot for a stretch and carry this team, but we just haven’t seen that in the playoffs, or really this season, aside for his three game shutout streak. If Kirill Kaprisov comes over soon, that could change the whole complexion of this team, but something something Russia something something.

All in all I think this team is very much stuck in a rut through most of the Parise/Suter contracts, barring a miracle. It’ll be interesting to see how they try to build around their corpses in 5 years.

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Everything Else

Game #55 – Hawks vs. Wild Douchebag Du Jour: We Were Finally Right About Something

By Sam Fels February 10, 2018 1977 0

The first time we wrote this section about a player on the Wild this season, it was Chris Stewart. We don’t like to repeat ourselves, but we don’t get to take a victory lap very often. Back then, Stewart was in the middle of a goal-scoring binge based on a stupid shooting percentage. And of course, there were plenty of stories about how Stewart had “turned a new leaf” and “was a new player” instead of the same dolt that he’s always been who just happened to see goalies waving at his shots slightly more often than they did in the past.

Since October, Stewart has two goals. He’s played three games in the past month, mostly being a healthy scratch now that the Wild are getting back to fully healthy at forward. Because that’s what he is.

We’ve dealt with this locally, of course. How many stories did you see in the season’s first two months about Tommy Wingels and Lance Bouma just because they goofed a couple goals, even though every other marker indicated they were the same doofi they’d been their whole careers? Richard Panik, anyone?

This is another thing that seems unique to hockey. In baseball when some punter car-accidents his way to 10 homers in a month, everyone points to BABIP or fly ball rate or luck or might even start whispering about PEDs, though that isn’t really fair. Everyone knows that once the plate-appearances pile up, everything will almost certainly flatten out. Unless you’re Micah Hoffpauir and there are still Cubs fans who think he’d have been better than Anthony Rizzo.

Stewart is the same chucklehead that even the Blues or Sabres didn’t want much to do with. Maybe next time some idiot finds the net more than you’d expect in October, local scribes won’t suddenly be voting him Comeback Player Of The Year, an award hockey doesn’t even have.

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Everything Else

Game #43 – Wild vs. Hawks: Spotlight – Parise Is Burning

By Sam Fels January 10, 2018 2751 0

Immeasurable ink has been spilled, in the parlance of our times, about the raging insanity of the contracts handed out to Zach Parise and Ryan Suter. It seems so quaint now, as it was five and a half years ago now that they were given matching 13-year deals that run through 2025. We’ll have two more presidential elections before these are off the books (and won’t those be fun for all?)

Suter has basically done what you’d expect for a top pairing d-man, and for a cap hit of $7.5 that looks pretty reasonable at the moment. Though he probably won’t be doing what he is now at age 40, of course. However, in a world where Doughty and Karlsson are going to make north of $11 or $12 million soon, and Shea Weber makes more, you won’t fold up and melt thinking about Suter’s hit.

It’s Parise’s that’s still perplexing. What NHL GMs don’t want to notice, or admit, or even know, is that most forwards peak somewhere around age 25 or 26. There are always exceptions, but that’s the general rule. The decline after that isn’t sharp, and you’ll get almost a plateau from 25 to 27 or 28 or so. It’s after 30 that things tend to go south like a spring breaker, but really what you see at ages 24-26 is generally as good as it’s going to get for a forward, who have to basically sprint all over the ice every shift. A d-man can adjust his game with better positioning, anticipation, and streamlining. This is what you’ve seen Suter do, as though he racks up some of the heaviest minutes in the league he barely looks like he’s moving at times while having everything under control. Sure, a forward, and especially a scorer like Parise, can become more of a spot-up sniper as he ages, but that changes his overall effect on proceedings.

When Parise was signed to this elephantine contract, he was 28. In most ways, he had already had his best years. And even in his simple counting stats, you can see that. Parise has only once come anywhere close to his 38 goals of ’09-’10 while donning the green of the Wild, and certainly has never approached the 45 he poured in the year before that when he was 24. 33 is the best he’s done in St. Paul. And since that three years ago he slipped to 25 and then 19 last year.

Nothing in the underlying numbers should make Wild fans feel any better. His peak years in The Swamp saw him score over a goal per 60 minutes at even strength, again at 24 and 25. The best he’s done in Minny is 0.98 in ’14-’15. His points-per-60 at evens have never gotten near the 2.3 and 2.8 he managed in his peak as a Devil. In New Jersey he would take 12-13 shots per game at evens. He’s never managed more than 11 in Minnesota, and the past two years he couldn’t even get to double-digits. You’ll find the same story with his overall attempts.

The only encouraging this is that since arriving in the Land O’ Lakes he’s managed to up the rate he gets scoring chances and high-danger chances, which speaks to a more active and anticipating mind. Of course, some of that the past two years can be explained by a switch to Bruce Boudreau, who plays a more high-tempo, if not less-organized, way than Mike Yeo did. But the difference is probably negligible.

All of this makes one wonder why you’d throw any serious years at an unrestricted free agent forward at all. A real players union, if they had any fear that NHL GMs would figure this out, would push for free agency a lot sooner. But they don’t have to fear that. Still, next summer’s big ticket is John Tavares, who is already 27. You’ll get some really good years out of any deal he signs, but you’re probably not going to get anything better than he’s already done. These are just how things go.

For more info on player aging curves, check this article out.

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Everything Else

Game #43 – Wild vs. Hawks: Q&A With Giles Ferrell…Because He Couldn’t Find Anything Else To Do

By Sam Fels January 10, 2018 1780 0

Giles Ferrell writes for ZoneCoverage.com and hosts the weekly Giles and The Goalie podcast. Follow him on Twitter @gilesferrell.

The Wild find themselves kind of in the same predicament as the Hawks. Can’t seem to get off the ground for more than a game or two in a row but also don’t lose enough to fall out of it. What’s the biggest problem of late?

Finding their identity. Minnesota has none and we are over halfway in the season. They have been hurt for a large chunk of the season and now they have a full roster so there is hope they will find their stride. Now with that said, they looked to be hitting the mark last week before they went into Colorado and had the crap absolutely kicked out of them.

Why is Zach Parise skating on what appears to be a third line? Or is Eriksson Ek the best center for him and that’s just how it goes?

More of that has to do with the fact Parise missed half the season with a back injury. Once he gets back up to full speed, it would not surprise me in the slightest to see him get bumped up to the top six. But for now, the hope is he can ignite Eriksson Ek – Minnesota’s 2015 first round pick who is on pace for two goals this year.

Devan Dubnyk had a .940 in December. Despite getting blasted in Colorado last Saturday, do you feel like he’s rounding back into what you’re used to seeing?

No doubt Dubnyk is coming back into form that Minnesota has known him to be. He has been inconsistent most of the year, but right before he went down with an injury he started to right the ship. Since his return he has picked up right where he left off – sans the Colorado game – and perhaps that has to do with his backup Alex Stalock pushing for more game time with his good play this year.

Is Jason Zucker or Matt Dumba pricing themselves out of a return to Minnesota this summer? Or can they shift some things around and make it ok?

A month ago I would have said Zucker might be a guy the Wild move because he might simply cost too much, but now a month long drought has brought his next contract back down to earth. After a torrid October, Dumba has been lighting it up and will probably be a very expensive signing for the Wild this offseason, being he can score and is a right shot. Dumba’s trade value come summer might be sky high, but it would be a crippling blow to the Wild blue line if they moved him.What will the Wild be looking to do before the deadline?

Wild fans cringe at the fact that GM Chuck Fletcher has a first round pick at his disposal to use, and he is reportedly in the final year of his contract. He did so last year, and that yielded one lousy playoff win for his team. I’m not sure the Wild will do much of anything before the deadline. The prospect cupboard is getting bare, they are right on the cap, and they might have a few internal options in the AHL they would try instead of making a move. Maybe they will get a bottom six player at the deadline, but otherwise Minnesota might be more inclined to stand pat.

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Game #33 – I’ll beat your ass if I beat your ass twice and you still here – Blackhawks 4, Wild 1

By Adam Hess December 17, 2017 3177 0

Box Score

Hockey Stats

Natural Stat Trick

The Blackhawks absolutely embarrassed the Minnesota Wild tonight, which is actually harder than you think because the Wild do a pretty good job of embarrassing themselves, usually. To the Bullets-

– The second line was extremely good tonight, dominating the Wild just about every time they were on the ice. They were a threat to score each time they had the puck in the offensive zone, and even Anisimov showed some flashes of fleet-footedness tonight, which was weird but cool. The Hawks first goal was the result of Nick Schmaltz putting yet another pass perfectly in the wheelhouse of Patrick Kane. I will never get used to how nice it feels to see those two go to work together.

– Just to elaborate on the end of that last bullet, I am fully convinced that Schamltz is a better running mate for Kane than Artemi Panarin ever was. Panarin had the speed to keep up with Kane and the shot to put away his good passes, but he isn’t nearly as creative with the puck as Schamltz is. Kane and Yeast Mode did have a great chemistry, but it looks like he has similar chemistry with Schmaltz already. The only change that needs to happen is getting Schmaltz moved to the pivot on that line, but with how well it’s working right now, I’m hesitant to call for too much tinkering.

– Jordan Oesterle has been a pleasant surprise lately. He’s looked good the past few games, and had another good game tonight, including a dime of a pass to spring Kane for the Hawks second goal. He was rewarded with 19 minutes of ice time, third among the Hawks defensive corps. He’s signed through next year at just $650k, so this might be a nice little signing by StanBo. Thanks, Edmonton.

– I know you don’t need me to tell you, but Crawford had another great game tonight. He nearly screwed up in the first period, but recovered well, and then was just his normal solid self the rest of the game. He did have a sweet save on Joel Eriksson Ek in the third period, absolutely robbing him with a stabbing glove save.

– Ryan Hartman showed some more skill tonight with a great, tight quarters goal in the third. He made a nice steal on the boards, and then just went hard to the net before getting creative and scoring from about 5 feet in front of Alex Stalock with a nifty quick shot that was just about impossible to stop. It was the kind of play the Hawks need from him more often – just going to the net and making things happen. He is everything Andrew Shaw was, but with more actual hockey skill, so if he can just embrace a bit more a Shaw-esque mentality (outside of being a shitheel individual) it will result in good things for him and the Hawks.

– Five wins in a row, and two straight over division opponents, is a nice way to head into the upcoming six-game road trip. Here’s hoping they keep the momentum going into that trip.

Everything Else

Game #33 – Wild vs. Hawks: Spotlight – With A Name Like Zucker…

By Sam Fels December 17, 2017 2887 0

If you’re sick of Jason Zucker, we wouldn’t blame you. First of all, he needs to decide how he wants people to pronounce his name, because it’s run the gamut. More to the point, if it feels like he kind of murders the Hawks, you wouldn’t be wrong there either. The stats say in the regular season, it’s only been eight points (five goals) in 20 games. Feels like more, right? Part of that is the Hawks were finally able to keep him quiet last year, with no points in four games. Still, he’s been a nuisance.

Zucker is on pace to have his career-best season this campaign. He already has 14 goals, his career-high is 22. He has 25 points already, his career-high is 47. Yes, he’s been awfully hot this season, and a 20% shooting-percentage isn’t going to stick around forever you wouldn’t think.

More to the point, Zucker isn’t getting the same number of attempts he has in the past few years, averaging just 11 when the past three years he’s averaged between 14-16 attempts per game. His individual expected goals are down as well per game, so he’s riding the percentages a bit. What Zucker has been able to do is maintain his possession numbers while the team’s around him has collapsed. Zucker’s relative numbers have sky-rocketed, case in point being that Zucker’s relative expected goals-percentage is +12.1 over the team-rate, fifth best in the whole league.

And if you’re GM Chuck Fletcher, you’re kind of hoping Zucker’s agent doesn’t point that out this summer.

Zucker is a restricted free agent after the season, which pretty much blows for him. Should he be able to keep grinding down the railing of high-percentages, he’d find himself a 30-goal scorer and 55+-point man at the age of 26. On the open market, that’s a $5 million-a-year player. But Zucker isn’t going to be on the open market.

And he’s on a team that’s going to have no space at all. The Wild are already up against the cap right now, thanks to their Monty Python-foot-like deals to Parise and Suter. They don’t get much relief after the year either, as only Chris Steward, Matt Cullen, and Daniel Winnik’s deals come off the roster. That’s only about $3 million to play with. Rumors of the cap going up must have Fletcher with some kind of Jobu-like shrine in his office, praying to whatever god can make that true. Because the Wild also have to re-up Matthew Dumba, and seeing as how they punted Marco Scandella away to elevate his role, you’d best believe they’re not going to give up on him.

If the cap went up $3 million or so, with the three they have coming off the books, the Wild might be able to play hardball and get both Dumba and Zucker in for $3 million each. It’d be a slight raise for each, but you’d have to think that both want more than just a mere percentage-point raise.

And this is where if the NHL didn’t have an unspoken, collusion-lite system of no offer sheets things would get awfully interesting. Part of the reason there are no offer sheets is that the compensation system for them is utterly insane. As stated above, Zucker might prove to be a $5 million player. But if you were to offer him that, it would cost you four first round picks. In any kind of vacuum, you’re not trading four first rounders for what is at best a second line winger. If you were to offer Zucker $4 million a year, an amount the Wild might simply not be able to match, that still costs you a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Again, for a second-line winger. You’d have to think this is something the NHLPA will revisit in a new CBA. That is, if they had a clue.

Look for some contentious negotiations this summer between the Wild and Zucker. They simply can’t give him more than $3 million, and he’s earned more than that. Would the Wild allow Zucker to bet on himself for a one-year deal and then go UFA in the summer of ’19? The Wild system is actually stocked. Jordan Greenway looks to be eying that spot as soon as next year.

Wonder if the Wild might think about a trade this season? Stay tuned.

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