Minnesota Wild

I didn’t put this in the Wild thread because I’m not a GM nor do I pretend to be.

I don’t follow the Wild religiously but do kind of follow along as the season goes. I see Kirill Kaprizov scored his 43rd & 44th goals last night (I think thats right) against a bad San Jose team. How can the Wild be so bad? From what I understand they have some kids people think are pretty good. Is it as simple as some guys have had off years? Is the goaltending the problem? They took off after they fired the coach….is the new guy the answer? Is there any reason to think they will be better next year or are they stuck in a rut?

Dutch, the goaltending has not been good this year at all. There are stats that show they essentially lost the team 18 games themselves more than expected which is really bad. THey were plagued with injuries all year. Their captain played 16 games all season and had 2 season ending surgeries months ago. The rookie goalie from Iowa came up for a game against the stars and the wild were missing 12 guys! Of course they got dismantled in his debut, but he has looked very good in his last two starts albeit against bad teams. A shutout against the Hawks and allowed 2 goals last night and one he had no chance on.
The team will be fine once healthy.
Im not sure if Hynes is the answer or not because they have faltered a bit under him too, but overall have played well. The PP has been OK, but the PK is just plain terrible.
THere are veterans who just are not playing up to expectations. Johansson and Gaudreau are the big losers here. Great guys, but playing terrible.
On paper they should have gotten about 100 pts this year which would have them in the playoffs, but with everything I mentioned that really killed them. They started the year so dang bad and got their coach fired.

Thank you. Good to know they might bounce back next year. I watched the Bruin vs Penguin game last night on ABC. Very entertaining game. I am always amazed by the skill set and speed of some of these players. Baseball is my game but I love a good hockey game also.

Thanks for replying.

Yeah the wild should be better next year but it’s the following year where things free up money wise and then it’s on like donkey Kong. Some key guys to lock up to likely huge deals like Faber but they will have some money to play with. Right now they are fielding a roster about 15M less than everyone else.