2022/2023 NHL/Wild Offseason-Season-Postseason Thread

JoeMX1825 wrote:

I don’t know alot about him or his writing history, but I do give him alot of credit for sticking up against the Blackhawks Owner/Family during the Beach story…Ownership did all they could to surpress the story and make it go away, but this guy never gave in…

Just read the Hull story and I totally agree re the Beach situation and the Blackhawks organizational coverup. Sign o’ the times how some out there think that somehow the bad guy in this whole situation is the reporter who just wouldn’t shut up about it.

Re the Hull story, it is only professional athletes and related pro sports persons who think they deserve “separate lives” whereby their on-ice or on-field performance has to be treated as if that person was a different and separate person than the guy who off the ice beat his wife to a bloody pulp.

This concept is an invention not of the media, but of the people it benefits–the professional athletes and related owners, coaches, etc. They want–and largely get–the ability to have their image cake and eat it too. Yeah, yeah, there are some exceptions, but the exceptions just prove the rule. These guys have put them in a position where they really feel as though they should NOT have to address or be in any way impacted by anything they do outside of sports. Just look at Charlie Entitled Pete Rose and his decades-long “So what I gambled on baseball?” campaign. His attitude has always been that he’s entitled to be judged only by his on-field performance and that other little situation is a personal issue that nobody should talk about.

I won’t be the one blaming the reporter, the fans, or anyone else for talking about this stuff.

Scott Wheeler is up to #9 prospect pool and still no Wild. Joe you might have nailed it with #6.
Rossi is on fire lately. Love to see it!

Not disagreeing with you Grouse, but will toss out a counterpoint.
I think you have to separate the Kyle Beach portion as that had direct ties to the organization and I don’t think anyone would disagree with that the Blackhawks should not be held accountable.

As far as the personal lives of athletes. Is it really any of our business. I mean there are thousands of examples of terrible athletes. Some of the greats were horrible people. Ty Cobb, OJ Simpson(extreme example) Tiger woods. What I am saying is because they play a professional sport is it any of our business what this person or that person is like in their daily life.
Is it any of my business what you or my co workers life is like outside of work?
I dunno it’s a tough one, but he isn’t the first HOF athlete to be a terrible human being outside of the sport that’s for sure.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

I won’t be the one blaming the reporter, the fans, or anyone else for talking about this stuff.

You completely missed my point. You bring up the Kyle Beach and Bobby Hull situations because those are situations where Laz was right to get heavy into the off-ice stuff. Those were layups and he did well covering them. I thought his Bobby Hull story was an excellent (and unfortunately rare) example of telling both sides of his story.

My issue with Lazerus is he brings that same energy into EVERYTHING. Listen to a podcast he’s on and I guarantee he trashes hockey culture multiple times. He can’t *not* talk about how hockey is terrible and hockey players are terrible humans. He’s a hockey beat writer trying to be a outrage-inducing journalist.

What was the timing of his abuse allegations? Was it during his playing career or after? If during, I think its despicable that he is in the HOF. To me it isnt just about production ON the ice its about conduct OFF of it. It will be interesting to see how the blackhawks handle any “celebration” of his because they have certainly fumbled about everything in the last 15 years. Man they are a trash organization. So bummed my buddy’s kid got drafted by them. Hopefully he gets traded, but they are very high on him so I doubt it.

From what I remember over the years, Bobby was a total scumbag and the abuse allegations were from multiple wives over a long time-span. I’m pretty sure Brett wants nothing to do with him.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Scott Wheeler is up to #9 prospect pool and still no Wild. Joe you might have nailed it with #6.
Rossi is on fire lately. Love to see it!

Based on the Nashville writup of Askarov, Wheeler thinks Wallstedt is the best goalie prospect in the world…so he will likely be our #1 listed prospect over Rossi…

I think his top 15 Wild prospect list will be:

1) Wallstedt
2) Rossi
3) Faber
4) Ohgren
5) Lambos
6) Khusnidhnov
7) Yurov
8) Peart
9) Walker
10) Beckman
11) Spacek
12) Haight
13) Petrovsky
14) Hunt
15) O’Rourke

There’s even a few other guys who could be on this list…pretty stacked imo… sitting back looking at this list, maybe #6 wasn’t high enough…based on Wheeler’s methodology, I could see the Wild anywhere between 3-6 now…

CaptainMusky wrote:

Scott Wheeler is up to #9 prospect pool and still no Wild. Joe you might have nailed it with #6.

I’m going somewhere between #2 – #4 and he puts Wallstedt at #1.

Devils will be #1 pool and Red Wings will be up there too. Then LA will depend on whether or not he includes Byfield. Buffalo, Columbus, and Anaheim have all their best prospects playing full-time NHL so I’m assuming they won’t be included.

Wallstedt is an absolute stud right now. That is going to be the steal of the draft. Probably was before, but its really going up now. Man, if we can figure out a way to keep Gus who seems to be gaining traction and Wallstedt come up we could have the best goalie tandem in the NHL. The two of them seem to play similar styles too which is good for the D to know how to defend in front of them.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Wallstedt is an absolute stud right now. That is going to be the steal of the draft. Probably was before, but its really going up now. Man, if we can figure out a way to keep Gus who seems to be gaining traction and Wallstedt come up we could have the best goalie tandem in the NHL. The two of them seem to play similar styles too which is good for the D to know how to defend in front of them.

yeah, not a bad month

“Jesper Wallstedt (MIN) named AHL goalie of the month after going 6-0-0, picking up his first shutout and compiling a .958 save percentage. He allowed just seven goals in those six starts. Raised his season save percentage to .914”

Like Flower & Gus’s overall season numbers, a few bad games early on dug a deep hole for him to climb out of…

Sheesh that is quite the month for sure! I havent looked at their record, but hopefully they are in playoff contention.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Sheesh that is quite the month for sure! I havent looked at their record, but hopefully they are in playoff contention.

They have something like an 11 game point streak going right now…They are 2 points out of 2nd place in their division…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

They have something like an 11 game point streak going right now…They are 2 points out of 2nd place in their division…

LOL they’re 4th in the division but I love the optimistic spin.

Fortunately pretty much everyone makes the playoffs in the AHL… which makes it even more impressive they didn’t make it last year.

tswoboda wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>JoeMX1825 wrote:</div>
They have something like an 11 game point streak going right now…They are 2 points out of 2nd place in their division…

LOL they’re 4th in the division but I love the optimistic spin.

Fortunately pretty much everyone makes the playoffs in the AHL… which makes it even more impressive they didn’t make it last year.

Huh?

Oh come on… this is child’s play

tswoboda wrote:

Oh come on… this is child’s play

Hey look, now we’re in 1st place! Whoohoo!

Tim Army’s teams will always win that race lol.

But seriously the AHL seeds playoffs by points percentage… so I know you’re trying to make it a joke but sorting by total points is wrong

Don’t get me wrong love the Great Wall of St. Paul and that he is adapting well, but doesn’t it scare some of you that our top prospect is a goalie. This the reason they are getting such a ranking. I mean goalies change more than my underwear. One bad stretch can turn some into a dumpster fire and vice versa. Most of the top goalies in the NHL usually come out of no where.
Like I said important position that you hope can be locked down for a long time, but with the way goalies move around this league not sure haveing a goalie be your top prospect is the end all be all.

tswoboda wrote:

Tim Army’s teams will always win that race lol.

But seriously the AHL seeds playoffs by points percentage… so I know you’re trying to make it a joke but sorting by total points is wrong

Yeah Deans minor league coach’s goal was 50 shots and 50 body checks a game or they were bag skating.

tswoboda wrote:

Tim Army’s teams will always win that race lol.

But seriously the AHL seeds playoffs by points percentage… so I know you’re trying to make it a joke but sorting by total points is wrong

Just messing with ya, I simply took a screenshot of the standings screen as how it loaded..

Ripjiggen wrote:

Don’t get me wrong love the Great Wall of St. Paul and that he is adapting well, but doesn’t it scare some of you that our top prospect is a goalie. This the reason they are getting such a ranking.

DOesnt scare me it actually encourages me more I think. Yeah its not typical to have a goalie as your best prospect, but when you have one that is a true franchise goaltender like Wallstedt appears to be that’s fantastic. Sure goalies move around a lot, but the really good ones dont all that much with some exceptions of course.

I don’t think it’s a sign of weakness for the prospect pool, I think it’s a sign of how good Wallstedt is and how high his potential is. Not like they used a top 5 or 10 pick on him – used the same pick as they did on Ohgren. The upside is the Wild could have a legit franchise goalie for the first time in maybe ever. I get goalies are easy to find in free agency but I’d still rather have someone like Juicy Saros or Carter Hellebyuck year after year. And if Wallstedt flames out then so be it, we’ll get another cheap one.

Either way I’d rather it be a goalie at #1 than a 21 YO playmaking center with 1 assist in 18 NHL games.

Ripjiggen wrote:

Don’t get me wrong love the Great Wall of St. Paul and that he is adapting well, but doesn’t it scare some of you that our top prospect is a goalie. This the reason they are getting such a ranking. I mean goalies change more than my underwear. One bad stretch can turn some into a dumpster fire and vice versa. Most of the top goalies in the NHL usually come out of no where.
Like I said important position that you hope can be locked down for a long time, but with the way goalies move around this league not sure haveing a goalie be your top prospect is the end all be all.

I’m not worried, every now and again a team finds a franchise goalie in the draft (Roy/Lundquist/Price/Rinne/Hellebuyck), not often but it happens, maybe Wallstedt is ours, it would be nice to be able to lock that position down for 8-10+ years….I think our prospect pool is rounded out pretty well, with no huge gaps (other than a lack of RH shooters)…and it’s been built mostly picking late in the round…but as many have mentioned, they are just prospects until they make the NHL and contribute…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

Just messing with ya, I simply took a screenshot of the standings screen as how it loaded..

Me when anyone sorts by total points instead of points percentage:

tswoboda wrote:

Either way I’d rather it be a goalie at #1 than a 21 YO playmaking center with 1 assist in 18 NHL games.

oh this is so tempting, but I won’t do it…must…. not…. reply…

JoeMX1825 wrote:

every now and again a team finds a franchise goalie in the draft (Roy/Lundquist/Price/Rinne),

Wallstedt a future HOFer, confirmed. I hope these names aren’t what’s expected of him lol

JoeMX1825 wrote:

oh this is so tempting, but I won’t do it…must…. not…. reply…

Come on just take the bait… HA You have more will power than me!

tswoboda wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>JoeMX1825 wrote:</div>
every now and again a team finds a franchise goalie in the draft (Roy/Lundquist/Price/Rinne),

Wallstedt a future HOFer, confirmed. I hope these names aren’t what’s expected of him lol

I just picked some names of goalies with long tenures with their draft team, not that common anymore…it would be nice to pencil his name in at training camp for a decade…

tswoboda wrote:

I don’t think it’s a sign of weakness for the prospect pool, I think it’s a sign of how good Wallstedt is and how high his potential is. Not like they used a top 5 or 10 pick on him – used the same pick as they did on Ohgren. The upside is the Wild could have a legit franchise goalie for the first time in maybe ever. I get goalies are easy to find in free agency but I’d still rather have someone like Juicy Saros or Carter Hellebyuck year after year. And if Wallstedt flames out then so be it, we’ll get another cheap one.

Either way I’d rather it be a goalie at #1 than a 21 YO playmaking center with 1 assist in 18 NHL games.

Have you seen him with his shirt off though?

I would be interested in seeing where they would rank without Wallstedt at 1 is what I was getting at. Not as if these rankings mean all that much but All Star break type topics.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

I just picked some names of goalies with long tenures with their draft team, not that common anymore…it would be nice to pencil his name in at training camp for a decade…

OK then which Roy are we talking about?

Just thought it was funny they’re all HOFers. Kinda like saying I don’t think Boldy will be great, just a good franchise winger like Jarome Iginla or Brendan Shanahan.

tswoboda wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>JoeMX1825 wrote:</div>
I just picked some names of goalies with long tenures with their draft team, not that common anymore…it would be nice to pencil his name in at training camp for a decade…

OK then which Roy are we talking about?

Just thought it was funny they’re all HOFers. Kinda like saying I don’t think Boldy will be great, just a good franchise winger like Jarome Iginla or Brendan Shanahan.

I’ve said from the start I just want a goalie good enough to be our starter for an extended period of time (8+ years) typically that comes with being a very good goalie. I never said HOF, I just listed some names of goalies off the top of my head that were drafted by the team they ended up playing 10+ seasons with…Rip eluded to the fact that those types of goalies just aren’t common anymore, I agree with that…that’s why it’s hard to think of names besides the obvious greats…

Wallstedt looks like the type of goalie you can write his name on the board with a Sharpie and not worry about needing to erase it…lets hope it plays out that way…