Wild Offseason

[10,000 Casts]

Wild are going after Cullen hard! I hope we get him..

[SneakAttack]

Wild are going after Cullen hard! I hope we get him..

Matt Cullen to Minnesota at 3yr 10.5 million, according to TSN

[OnAFly]

Hopefully he works out. He's 33, so he should have easily three good years left in him. The best part, he's a center that can play on both sides of the rink. The Wild needed this bad. You can't play Koivu 60 minutes a game.

We also got Eric Nystrom (son of Bobby Nystrom) for 1.4mil/yr, 3 years. That seems like a lot for this kind of 3rd liner guy. I hear he's a good team mate and locker room presence, but that's a lot for a 3rd line guy. We'll see how that tuirns out. Hopefully for the best.

Is it October 7th yet? I need my hockey fix!

[JimBuck]

Cullen is a good pick up and we desperately need more older, experienced players. Eric Nystrom I am pretty curious about as I know very little about him. It sounds like Boogard is joining Gaborik in NY and big John has moved to Chicago?

Yes, bring on the NHL season!

[SneakAttack]

John Scott goes to Hawks at 1yr 1 million

If Eric Nystrom could play like Swedish Steel Bobby Nystrom, it would be great but he doesnt, just a 10-15 point a year grinder

[Quackaddict9]

better than James Sheperd at 5 points last season...

[bucketmouth64]

Wild lost Andrew Ebbett. Wasn't he a center? I liked his speed and I thought he was a good center for 3rd/4th line. I thought he was a good change of pace with his speed.

[OnAFly]

Ebbett's performance really dropped off last year after his concussion (thanks to Jovanovsky and the butt end of his stick). Maybe they felt he was risky after that.

[Bear55]

We certainly paid a premium to get our FA but I think we had to, Cullen could have career numbers playing between Havlat and Lats and I think Nystrom will be a fan fav in time, he works hard and actually had a pretty good year last year for a grinder (11 goals). Technically he is in his late twenties and reaching his prime as a hockey player so he just might be able to kick in a little more offense.

[scsavre]

LTD was a good price compared to what we paid Clutterbuck. The wild still need alot more then Cullen and Nystrom. I am sure they are still working on it.

[Bear55]

Wild sign Robbie Earl, 1 year at 550K, a good depth move and maybe just maybe Mr. Earl can improve and take a step forward.

Wild also sign: German goalie Dennis Endras - MVP of 2010 IIHF World Championships...

Very interesting move, maybe Harding will finally get moved for something. This goalie sounds like he is very close to NHL ready, heading back to Germany for a year and then coming over to try out. I also read somewhere that half of the NHL was after this guy and we landed him, sounds good to me.

[OnAFly]

From the looks of it Goalies just aren't that coveted right now. Nabokov went to the KHL since no one wanted him at the salary he wanted and he was a top goalie. The whole injury thing with Harding might be hurting him too. Hopefully we keep him through part of the season and let him get a few good starts. Then ship him off for a pick or two.

Good signing with Earl. He has a bit of that scoring touch. Maybe he'll improve bit this year.

[Bear55]

Ya I am starting to get the feeling we aren't going to get much for Harding, he could even walk at the end of the year as a UFA. Come the trade deadline there might be someone interested if Harding plays well for us this year.

Part of me kind of wants to gamble and trade Backstrom but there is that whole NTC thing. Not that I don't like him but I think we could use the extra cap space to find us a goal scorer.

[walleyes12]

I am okay with the Earl signing, we have more than enough 3 and 4 line offensive players!!! Its time for this organization to make some bigger moves. sheppard, Earl - not going to get us to the playoffs.

[OnAFly]

Harding will get a 1 year deal and get traded at some point in the year. I really think this is the way this will go. Fletcher knows he can't let players go for nothing if he thinks he can get something out of them. He's shown this in Johnsson and Belanger.

I think the only way we get some scoring is through trade. We are 4 mil away from the cap and CF likes to have room for moves during the season. We still need to resign Harding to a year deal. That leaves us with 2.5 mil. Which is not a lot. We don't have any prospects we could give up without hurting ourselves in the future, so the only way to get players is through trading NHL players.

Hopefully Bouchard can play this year. That 4.25mil would be really ice right about now.

[spearchucker]

All could change once the season starts and someone gets hurt and they need a goalie.

[Bear55]

I am okay with the Earl signing, we have more than enough 3 and 4 line offensive players!!! Its time for this organization to make some bigger moves. sheppard, Earl - not going to get us to the playoffs.

Sure bigger moves would be nice but like OnAFly said we don't have the cap room, plus we have to sign Koivu to an extension and its not going to be cheap. We are in the same boat as a almost all teams, we signed too many players to big contracts for the wrong terms a while back and now we have to live with it.

[OnAFly]

At least we didn't pull an Edmonton and give everyone on our team a 5 mil contract.

Spearchucker - good point. We did end up using Kudobin a couple times last year when both of our NHL goalies went down. I just don't like seeing guys leave for nothing when they have value.

[spearchucker]

At least we didn't pull an Edmonton and give everyone on our team a 5 mil contract.

Spearchucker - good point. We did end up using Kudobin a couple times last year when both of our NHL goalies went down. I just don't like seeing guys leave for nothing when they have value.

My point was also from another teams standpoint. They may loose a goalie and want to make a trade for Harding.

[OnAFly]

also good

[scsavre]

Bundle Harding, Burns and Sheppard. Word it as two former 1st rounders and a good goalie.....Man the wild screwed themselves with all these terrible 1st round picks. That would free up some cap space or get us a goal scorer.

[MinnesnowtaWild]

Harding and Sheppard...yes. Burn...no. Burns needs more time to rehabilitate back to his old self. It was not too long ago that he was considered up there with the rest of the elite defensemen. His value is too low right now for it to be worth trading him.

Sheppard has virtually no value at all. Harding has SOME value, but not much. It's not a goalie market these days. However, there are a number of teams who made the mistake of signing a goalie to a high $ contract and now need to shed salary and their under-performing goaltenders. This would make Harding wanted and needed by a few teams.

I wish we could make a play for Pat Sharp, but I'm not really sure who the Hawks would want from us. They would probably be looking to shed salary, so they wouldn't want any of our bad contracts in return so that leaves out Schultz, Bouchard, etc and they would look more for an up and coming prospect which we don't have a lot of.

[Bear55]

Wild sign Joel Broda from the WHL (Calgary). Decent stats (GP66 G39 A34 P73) and size (6'0 - 200lbs) he probably won't turn into much more then an AHLer but you never know. He was drafted by Washington in the 5th round back in 2008 and they elected not to sign him.

Either way it is very refreshing to see Fletcher making all these moves to try and build up our prospect pool. Safe to say we wouldn't have had any of these college free agents, german goalies, or other free agents under old management.

[10,000 Casts]

Burns is going to have his best year yet..

[scsavre]

Burns is going to hopefully be traded for someone with actual skill. Not a forward made D or vice versa. He can be scary out there on D. I shouldnt be so hard on him. Just wishing the Wild hadnt gotten so out of control with terrible #1 picks in the past.

He could be good on the right team.