2023/2024 NHL/WILD Offseason-Season-Postseason Thread

Chicken$hit PLD for going after Faber.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Chicken$hit PLD for going after Faber.

That’s what he does…his own team hates him too…if the Kings could somehow get out of that contract, they would in a heartbeat…

I’ll admit I was a fan of the Wild potentially trading for him before he was traded to the Kings, I figured he would eventually mature as he got older… dodged a bullet there…

All PLD has ever done is under achieve wherever he’s been. I believe the Kings would be in a much better position now had they not made that trade. They gave up way too much and gave PLD way too much for way too long. The Kings are stuck nobody is going to want that contract.

On the other hand Fiala seems to get on the score sheet every time he shows up on the ice against the Wild. Didn’t he have a three point game last time they met? He’s going to be a thorn in the Wild’s side for a long time to come I think.

Ice Cap wrote:

On the other hand Fiala seems to get on the score sheet every time he shows up on the ice against the Wild. Didn’t he have a three point game last time they met? He’s going to be a thorn in the Wild’s side for a long time to come I think.

It will feel alot better in a year or so when BOTH Ohgren and Faber are on the ice against the Kings…

Fiala gets on the scoresheet every game regardless of who they’re playing. Whether it’s for points or stupid penalties he’ll be on the sheet every night one way or another. Kings fans have created the “Kevin Fiala Hattrick” which is a goal, assist, and stupid offensive zone penalty

The Wild have 1 game in the next week and vegas has 4!? If vegas wins 2 of those games the Wild are done. As it is now they likely are regardless.

The wild are your typical Minnesota team. Start the season with High hopes, do just well enough to keep fans interested, and either miss the playoffs or limp into the playoff and lose right away in the 1st round. I know this team has had lots of injuries, but so have other teams.

This year they have not played well due to both injuries and salary cap issues. The past few years the regular season they play very well near the top of the league and get bounced in the first round of the playoffs. I didn’t have much faith in the team this year going in, but I did think they would have been a little better than they have been and make the playoffs and get bounced again. I was really hoping they would have tanked and gotten a top 7 draft pick, but alas we will pick middle of the road yet again.

fishthumper wrote:

The wild are your typical Minnesota team. Start the season with High hopes, do just well enough to keep fans interested, and either miss the playoffs or limp into the playoff and lose right away in the 1st round. I know this team has had lots of injuries, but so have other teams.

mojogunter wrote:

I was really hoping they would have tanked and gotten a top 7 draft pick, but alas we will pick middle of the road yet again.

There’s only an 8 point difference from picking 16th to 8th and most teams have 1-2 games in hand on the Wild, the Wild has 12 games left and 4 of those are against the Blackhawks, Senators and 2 x Sharks, the rest are tougher teams…

The draft order can change alot in the last 3 weeks of the season…

You can’t honestly say you’d rather see your team tank and finish at or near the bottom of the league for years on end, would you? I’m not really sure where that strategy ever came from because even though it “can” work (Penguins, Blackhawks), most of the time it fails. Then you end up with a crappy team for a decade followed by an over rated team with over paid players.

The NHL has pretty good parity. Lower seeded teams beat higher seeded ones all the time in the playoffs. The Wild just haven’t been able to do that. Simply making the playoffs every season for a long period of time is an indication of long term consistency.

Put me in the camp of being competitive on a consistent basis over being terrible for a decade with the remote chance of improving.

gimruis wrote:

Lower seeded teams beat higher seeded ones all the time in the playoffs.

That’s because of Goalies. A hot Goalie can carry a lessor team a long ways in the playoffs. Can’t win if you can’t score. If you look at the lower seeded teams that have went a ways in the playoffs, its almost always been because of hot Goalie play

gimruis wrote:

Put me in the camp of being competitive on a consistent basis over being terrible for a decade with the remote chance of improving.

Put me in the camp of being poor for a few years, and then winning championships. over a consistent team year after year.

gimruis wrote:

You can’t honestly say you’d rather see your team tank and finish at or near the bottom of the league for years on end, would you? I’m not really sure where that strategy ever came from because even though it “can” work (Penguins, Blackhawks), most of the time it fails. Then you end up with a crappy team for a decade followed by an over rated team with over paid players.

The NHL has pretty good parity. Lower seeded teams beat higher seeded ones all the time in the playoffs. The Wild have just haven’t been able to do that. Simply making the playoffs every season for a long period of time is an indication of long term consistency.

Put me in the camp of being competitive on a consistent basis over being terrible for a decade with the remote chance of improving.

I think the difference this season (at least in my eyes) is this was always going to be the Wild’s toughest season of the “Parise/Suter caphit era” we didn’t have the cap flexibility to fix obvious roster holes other than a waiver wire pickup and a ELC signing) so this is the year to play as-is and if we don’t make the playoffs, then hopefully get the best draft pick we can BECAUSE I/Fans/GMBG don’t expect this team to be in this draft lottery position for years to come, we should be entering this core’s “Cup Window” and picking anywhere between 17-32 should be expected…

fishthumper wrote:

Put me in the camp of being poor for a few years, and then winning championships. over a consistent team year after year.

How about finishing dead last and emptying an arena of a fanbase? Is that bad enough? Because that’s exactly what the Blackhawks and Penguins did for about 15 years to find success. Its a rotten and crappy way to try and win. And like I said, it fails a lot more than it succeeds.

CaptainMusky wrote:

The Wild have 1 game in the next week and vegas has 4!? If vegas wins 2 of those games the Wild are done. As it is now they likely are regardless.

And so the Minnesota Math season begins.
As I said about a month ago, stick a fork in em. All we’re doing by winning now is p1ssing away draft positions.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>CaptainMusky wrote:</div>
The Wild have 1 game in the next week and vegas has 4!? If vegas wins 2 of those games the Wild are done. As it is now they likely are regardless.

And so the Minnesota Math season begins.
As I said about a month ago, stick a fork in em. All we’re doing by winning now is p1ssing away draft positions.

While i’m not fully disagreeing with you, my math shows us still only 3 points out of the last Wildcard spot…EVERY team below us (except the Blues at 6-4) has played .500 or UNDER the last 10 games…NOTHING is guaranteed yet….

Theyre not done, but they are going to need some help. Last night certainly did NOT help. They have 2 with Vegas yet right? Lose one of those and then they are surely done.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Theyre not done, but they are going to need some help. Last night certainly did NOT help. They have 2 with Vegas yet right? Lose one of those and then they are surely done.

Yeah, so Vegas has 2 games in hand, but even if they win both, the Wild can win both games vs Vegas it has left and wipe that out…so it could still theoretically look like a 3 point differential with about 8 or so games left?

Saturday’s game is huge because the Blues are right below us, we don’t win that, then we need to rely on other teams for help moving forward…Maybe somebody can correct me, but I think if the Wild win Saturday, they control their playoff future? (i.e. – if they win out, they are in?)

Tom Wilson at it again. In person hearing. Maybe give him a lengthy suspension this time.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

but I think if the Wild win Saturday, they control their playoff future? (i.e. – if they win out, they are in?)

No they’ll need Vegas to lose a couple games even if the Wild win out, including both against Vegas… that’s pretty much the only team they could catch at this point. Playoffs chances are still slim to zero.

I still don’t get the ‘I wish they would have tanked’… They did tank. They traded 3 roster regulars at the deadline for picks and prospects. They acquired no one. They now have the #1D, #2D, and #1C out of the lineup with injuries.
What more can they do to tank? You can’t change the fact they had the easiest schedule in the NHL after February. You can’t make 97 stop winning games by himself. You can’t make 29 let pucks past him on purpose. The players and coaches are going to keep trying their damndest to win games, even though some nights it may not look like it.

Lose the next 2 games and they probably shut Ek and Brodin down for the season. Foligno and Middleton have nagging injuries too I think so they could come out. I’m assuming Faber is fighting something as well so could shut him down too… those 3 coming out would certainly alter the last 10 games.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Tom Wilson at it again. In person hearing. Maybe give him a lengthy suspension this time.

Ballsy move by the league! I love it, didn’t think they had it in them but if they’re bringing him in now no amount of games would surprise me here. A stick swing to the head is as bad as it gets and then also take his history into account.

tswoboda wrote:

Lose the next 2 games and they probably shut Ek and Brodin down for the season. Foligno and Middleton have nagging injuries too I think so they could come out. I’m assuming Faber is fighting something as well so could shut him down too…

Whoa? didn’t I mention that and got grief for it?

It’s funny that the Wild’s remaining games are laid out so we get a potential layup victory (Sharks x2, Blackhawks, Senators) every few games which is just enough to keep the final nail going into the coffin until the end…

tswoboda wrote:

Ballsy move by the league! I love it, didn’t think they had it in them but if they’re bringing him in now no amount of games would surprise me here. A stick swing to the head is as bad as it gets and then also take his history into account.

The hit before that slash to the face was just about as bad.

CaptainMusky wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>tswoboda wrote:</div>
Ballsy move by the league! I love it, didn’t think they had it in them but if they’re bringing him in now no amount of games would surprise me here. A stick swing to the head is as bad as it gets and then also take his history into account.

The hit before that slash to the face was just about as bad.

but he hugged the player after a full swing of the stick to his face as if it was an accident…lol

I remember ragging on you about having guys get surgery, not shutting down hurt players. I believe I envisioned a story of Billy G coming in to let Kirill know he’s going under the knife because they need the 10th overall pick. Potato potato I suppose.

I also said shutting down hurt players was something that happens in the last few games, not at the deadline. The original question was how does the team tank going into the deadline.

JoeMX1825 wrote:

but he hugged the player after a full swing of the stick to his face as if it was an accident…lol

Kissed and made up I guess then LOL

tswoboda wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>CaptainMusky wrote:</div>
Tom Wilson at it again. In person hearing. Maybe give him a lengthy suspension this time.

Ballsy move by the league! I love it, didn’t think they had it in them but if they’re bringing him in now no amount of games would surprise me here. A stick swing to the head is as bad as it gets and then also take his history into account.

When has the league ever cared about history when it comes to Wilson? Punches Buchnevich in the back of the head while he’s lying on the ice and gets fined $5k when he’s already a repeat offender.

Granted I think the league was mildly embarrassed by that move because they fined the Rangers like 250k for criticizing it.

gimruis wrote:

You can’t honestly say you’d rather see your team tank and finish at or near the bottom of the league for years on end, would you? I’m not really sure where that strategy ever came from because even though it “can” work (Penguins, Blackhawks), most of the time it fails. Then you end up with a crappy team for a decade followed by an over rated team with over paid players.

The NHL has pretty good parity. Lower seeded teams beat higher seeded ones all the time in the playoffs. The Wild just haven’t been able to do that. Simply making the playoffs every season for a long period of time is an indication of long term consistency.

Put me in the camp of being competitive on a consistent basis over being terrible for a decade with the remote chance of improving.

If you look back at all of the top teams in the league 80% were bad enough to have the number 1 overall pick in the last 6 years.
Yes tanking can work.
The Wild are too small. When a bigger man of equal talent goes up against a smaller man, the big man wins.
You don’t draft talented big men with the 14th pick , you get talented smaller men. The smaller players need to be far more talented.

gimruis wrote:

You can’t honestly say you’d rather see your team tank and finish at or near the bottom of the league for years on end, would you? I’m not really sure where that strategy ever came from because even though it “can” work (Penguins, Blackhawks), most of the time it fails. Then you end up with a crappy team for a decade followed by an over rated team with over paid players.

Put me in the camp of being competitive on a consistent basis over being terrible for a decade with the remote chance of improving.

I completely disagree with this. Since the turn of the century lockout more teams that have tanked have succeeded than not. Tampa, chicago, Pitt, Colorado, Washington, LA, all gained their stars from being at the basement of the league for a handful of seasons that won them their cups. Being a decent team every year hasn’t got anyone anywhere in recent history.

TheFamousGrouse wrote:

When has the league ever cared about history when it comes to Wilson? Punches Buchnevich in the back of the head while he’s lying on the ice and gets fined $5k when he’s already a repeat offender.

Don’t forget grabbing panarin’s hair and trying to bounce his head off the ice. That whole play was rock bottom for department of player safety. That’s why I was surpised he got the in person hearing this time. Hasn’t Wilson had like 25 game sussy in the past? Should be treated like a repeat offense in the hearing… the history doesn’t get taken into account until they establish a play deserves a hearing.