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

Ditto. I’ll take Ryan Hartman at a mill any day of the week.
[/quote]to do what? play 3rd line? he’s paid $1.7 because thats the level player he is, everyone says he took a haircut contract to stay with the Wild, well what contract did everyone expect coming off a 9 goal 11 assist season?… he had one magical season playing with a budding superstar, but unfortunately that spark is long gone…IF he’s extended, it better be to only play a 3rd line role moving forward…

and yes, saying Hayes and Johansen are 1st line centers at this point of their career’s is a stretch, but just 2 seasons ago I think they would be considered 1st liners (Flyers have had a terrible lineup, was Coutierier the 1st line center? maybe if healthy)…it seems like there is a sweet spot in terms of body type/sze for centers having extended NHL careers, the guys 6’1″ and smaller seem to have longer careers and the ones bigger than that have a shelf life of around 8-10 years before they start quickly losing a step or two….Hayes and Johansen are good examples of that imo…I think Johansen will thrive playing for Colorado…Hayes I think is mostly done having any impact…his game fell off faat…

Playing second maybe third line center.

Hayes set a career high in points last season – his game isn’t falling off, it was just never there.

Nashville is a good example of what can happen when you’re constantly chasing the #1 Center dream. Johansen was a good player for them for a few years, but still way overpaid.

tswoboda wrote:

Hayes set a career high in points last season – his game isn’t falling off, it was just never there.

Nashville is a good example of what can happen when you’re constantly chasing the #1 Center dream. Johansen was a good player for them for a few years, but still way overpaid.

Hayes is going into season #10, he looks the part of having a rapid decline in the next few years (lining up with his contract ending) especially in foot speed…

Johansen has been a polarizing player over his career imo, he wanted out of Columbus under Torts (tell me if you’ve heard that before) and traded 1-1 for a promising Seth Jones … He was the poster child prospect for a 1C (Size and skill) He excelled during his bridge deal and got his 8 year max deal but then never took his game to the next level, even when playing with a scorer like Filip Forsberg…I look at his career performance in a similar way to how Mikko Koivu played out in MN, great bridge contract performance that got him a long term 7 year big dollar (at the time) contract (Gaborik leaving for nothing also helped Koivu kind of get what he wanted as long as he singed long term) He then never exceeded the same offensive performance the rest of his career to match the contract he was on…Koivu does have the argument that we was never given a star to play with though…

Pierre LeBrun just put out an Athletic story about how difficult it is for teams to get capspace back moving existing money around in trades and some tough decisions are being made because there’s no alternatives…you either get rid of a guy you might want to keep and eat a good chunk of the money left on the deal or you stay stuck with what you have…Barry Trotz basically said this exact thing, he needed to give away $4 million for free, just to get $4 million in space back…

Cool podcast from a couple of days ago, the Sportsnet guys Elliot Freidman and some other guy talk about the draft and then interview Chuck Fletcher about how teams run their drafts (59:30 into it Chuck talks about drafting Kirill) very interesting discussion on how the scouts fight for thier guy to get picked…I guess we owe Brent Flahr for Kirill…

Good Russo part 2 mailbag. He also thinks there is zero chance the wild move into the top 10 of the draft.
Mentions some more on why he thinks Rossi was not ready last year. (Basically not strong enough).

I think there could be movement within the top 10 though, rumors are Washington absolutely wants Mitchkov and needs to leapfrog Philly to get him…

I think the Wild COULD get #14 from Pittsburgh if somebody Judd absolutely covets is stil there (Mathew Wood, Nate Danielson or Zack Benson) otherwise the price is likely not worth the small talent jump for 6 spots and they’ll take a 2nd tier center like Calum Ritchie or Otto Stenberg…

Either way we’ll get a good player who’s likely 2-3 years away from the Wild (depending on the prospect) in the 1st round…maybe the Wild could pool both 2nd rounders and move up into the early 2nd round and steal a kid who slipped out of the 1st round for some reason…

So the Hawks are trying to be relevant this season it seems. Just brought in Taylor Hall……

mahtofire14 wrote:

So the Hawks are trying to be relevant this season it seems. Just brought in Taylor Hall……

Blackhawks need somebody with ANY skill to play with Bedard as their current roster is JV level, Boston needs cap space in the worst way so they basically gave Hall away for free….these are desparate times in the 5th year of basically a flat cap…next year finally brings some welcomed relief…

Pretty crazy how many teams are in cap hell.

mahtofire14 wrote:

Pretty crazy how many teams are in cap hell.

Boston pushed all their chips in last season and lost bigtime, they are penalized $4 million in capspace this season because their low Veteran contracts last year for Bergeron/Krejci exceeded all their bonuses…

Tampa is likey the next team to dump a major current player because they need the capspace just to sign the rest of their team…Just look at their current roster and figure out who’s needs to go? tough choice!

If you have cap room you are not likely very good at all but yes you could take advantage of teams against it right now.

Either way we’ll get a good player who’s likely 2-3 years away from the Wild (depending on the prospect) in the 1st round…maybe the Wild could pool both 2nd rounders and move up into the early 2nd round and steal a kid who slipped out of the 1st round for some reason…

They will be getting a prospect that we will have no idea if he is NHL caliber for at least 2-3 years.
Just like every late first round pick.
Hopefully it pans out but you just really don’t know.

Ripjiggen wrote:

They will be getting a prospect that we will have no idea if he is NHL caliber for at least 2-3 years.
Just like every late first round pick.

yes for other years, but not this draft year…

Mathew Wood is somebody who’s likely in the AHL in 2 years and the NHL in 3…he’s kind of a special case as he’ll be a NCAA sophmore and teams won’t risk him staying 2 more years and going the UFA route…

By everything I read is that in the 20’s all of the players are very similar and would go in that range in just about every draft.
Generational draft sure but I think that is because of the elite talent at the top.
Can they find a good player absolutely but really he will be just a prospect that we will have to wait and see how they develop.
I think the wild have just as much chance to move back as they do to move up a couple of spots.
Russo also thought this was a good possibility for the wild.
Time will tell.

Ripjiggen wrote:

By everything I read is that in the 20’s all of the players are very similar and would go in that range in just about every draft.
Generational draft sure but I think that is because of the elite talent at the top.
Can they find a good player absolutely but really he will be just a prospect that we will have to wait and see how they develop.
I think the wild have just as much chance to move back as they do to move up a couple of spots.

I think there’s 22-24 players who are separated from the others, yes the top 10 are elite, top 5 would be #1 overall in a normal draft, but the next 12-14 players would likely be in the top 10 of a normal draft…that’s where the value is imo…there’s also plenty of opportunity to target size in all positions if that’s a direction Judd and GMBG want to go…Wings like Gabe Perrault and Sam Honzek are of similar skill level, but Perrault is 5’10 and Honzek is 6’4″

I don’t see at all what moving back does in this draft? We already have two 2nd rounders and the quality falls fast after the first few picks of the 2nd round..

I’d rather not move back as well. Just going off of what Russo was alluding to.

“As Brackett said, though, they’re at the mercy of other teams in terms of which players are left on their list when they pick at No. 21. And he didn’t rule out trading back.“

Ripjiggen wrote:

I’d rather not move back as well. Just going off of what Russo was alluding to.

“As Brackett said, though, they’re at the mercy of other teams in terms of which players are left on their list when they pick at No. 21. And he didn’t rule out trading back.“

yeah, I listened to the podcast, sounded like Judd was just covering his bases in terms what info he puts out publicly, keep other teams guessing… Just like his robotic description of Eduard Sale when Joe Smith mentioned he took him in the Athletic mock draft he did with other beat writers…

Unless they get a knock your socks off offer (other teams 1st next year and their 2nd & more this year for our #21) they move up if they can for someone they covet or they stay at #21

Good lord the NHL Awards show is terrible (no surprise)… He’s trying, but Biz cant even save it…

Someone voted McDavid 5th for the Hart

Eduard Sale is Scott Wheeler’s pick for the Wild at 21. He seems like an interesting prospect. It would be nice to get a potential top level center, but it really doesnt seem like there will be one at that spot.

CaptainMusky wrote:

It would be nice to get a potential top level center, but it really doesnt seem like there will be one at that spot.

If they could move upto #14 they could likely choose between Danielson or Yeager, if they stay at #21 they’ll likely have a choice of Ritchie or Stenberg…

New 2023/2024 thread starts tomorrow morning…

I think another trade possibility for the Wild is trading both of their 2nd round picks #53 & #64 to Washington for the #40 pick overall…Washington needs as many picks they can get (they don’t have a 3rd round pick this draft) to build up their depleted prospect pool, if a guy Judd ranked as a 1st rounder slips to #40 I could see this trade being offered…

lol, Kevin Hayes traded to St Louis at 50% retained salary for 3 YEARS! and all Philly gets back is a 6th round draft pick in 2024…

I can’t wait for the Wild TV guys to release the episode of the behind the scenes at the draft… I’ll be curious to hear what the trade chatter is (if any)

I get they need a veteran influence for their young players, but Chicago signing Nick Foligno for 1 year at $4 million is a sign of the end of days…

New Chicklets Podcast came out – the Jagr interview is awesome, dude is such a legend! The way he talks about Gretzky and Lemieux is something special…and Dude…the story he tells about why & when Mario came back to play, I ain’t gonna lie, somebody in my house must have been cutting onions…
I totally forgot he left the NHL to play in the KHL for 4 seasons and then came back to the NHL for another 9!!!… He assuredly would have broke the big records had he stayed..

Tomorrow is the new thread??

I think Joe mentioned he is going to get us off on right foot.