Wild Offseason

[bbfenatic]

Thank You Chuck! Was never a doubt though.

[10,000 Casts]

Goodbye Dany Heatley and HELLO Thomas Vanek! It's a good day to be a Wild fan!!!

[BartmanMN]

Nice.

[hoppe56307]

Wow Benoit Poluiot cashed in. 4yrs 20mil.

[CaptainMusky]

Let's get iginla for a 1 yr deal and find a big right handed dman! Let's play!!!!

[Bear55]

Beautiful! Great cap and term!

[10,000 Casts]

Moulson just signed in Buffalo for $5 yrs/$25m

[yakfisher]

Buffalo nabbed McCormick too.

[bbfenatic]

Moulson just signed in Buffalo for $5 yrs/$25m

Worst signing so far....and Pouliot for $20M....good golly, teams grasping at straws IMO

[10,000 Casts]

Iginla to Colorado... Darn!

[10,000 Casts]

Buffalo was $8m below the cap threshold. Maybe they sign Heatley to fill some space.

[10,000 Casts]

Quote:

Iginla gets $5.5M, $5.5M and $5M in each of three years with COL.

[bbfenatic]

Iginla to Colorado... Darn!

Perfect place for him, let all those young kids do all the work and you just stand around and snipe em home!

[Bear55]

We Get Vanek

Blues add Stastny

Dallas trades for Spezza

Iggy to Colorado

& Ducks get Kesler

This is just ridiculous.

[10,000 Casts]

MN was the perfect place for him and I'm curious what we offered? Can't blame a 37 year old for taking a 3 year deal with a team like Colorado.

Looks like the west will be scary good again next year.

[yakfisher]

It's going to be another brutal war next season. I can't wait!

[CaptainMusky]

Bummed about iginla. Would have liked to see him on a one or two year deal.

I'm satisfied with the vanek number and duration. Our power play got an instant boost.

I do like the sound of: (maybe swap koivu with granlund though)

Parise , koivu, coyle

Vanek, granlund, pomminville

Fontaine, Haula, nino

[OnAFly]

That's a little more than I was hoping for, but if Vanek puts up 25-30 and we can sign our young guys, I'm happy!

Is it october yet?

[PierBridge]

Another addition.

http://wild.nhl.com/club/news.htm?id=724578

[CaptainMusky]

That new scoreboard ought to boost the offense as well.

[CaptainMusky]

Mitchell signed with Florida. Man, did Florida make some serious signings today!!! They were busy.

I cannot get over some of these contracts. Stoner $13M? Moulson 4 yrs $20M, the Spezza deal, wow!!! They are crazy high.

I would have liked the number for Vanek to be a bit lower, maybe $6M, but I am OK with it.

Next moves/changes:

Trade Zucker, Brodziak, Backstrom (if possible)

Get Right handed big DMan (???), 3rd Line forward. We need a bruiser yet.

Cough Cough how about Bertuzzi? Ouch, did I just say that?

The Wild have $13.4M Cap space left after Vanek. They gave qualifying offers to Nino, Kuemper, Zucker, Fontaine. Let's say those guys all sign for half that (could be high), that leaves $6.7M (probably want to hold back $700K for other moves up and down during season) to spend on other folks not counting any potential trades.

We should be able to fill the last two needs I see for that. Question is, who is out there?? If there is no one that fits the system/team then hold on to the cash and wait it out.

[crothmeier]

Here's my line prediction:

Parise-Granlund-Pomminville

Vanek-Koivu-Coyle

Nino-Haula-Cooke

Veilleux-Broadziak-Fontaine

Zucker as a floater.

I wish we had McCormick centering the 4th line. He brought great energy. We need a big body now that Stoner was grossly overpaid by Anaheim.

[OnAFly]

Good for Stoner. He went from being a rotated out D-man to pretty much being set for life now. He was a great in the playoffs and I'm sure that had a lot to do with his contract.

[Bear55]

Word on the street in Buffalo was Vanek and Pommers were awesome together, throw Granlund in between and watch the magic happen! Nothing wrong with Koivu there either, might be interesting to see Granlund with Parise and Coyle too. Heck any combination will be fun to watch and we still have plenty of pieces to put together a heck of a 3rd line as well.

Good for Stoner on that contract but spendy for the ducks, yikes for Mitchell at 4.25, glad we didn't bite on that one. If we can't find anyone else it will be a good year to see if Blum, Dumba, or Folin can play, if not we can always pick up a D in a trade or at the deadline. Love this team right now!!!

[RK]

Man, a barrel of monkeys has nothing on 30 NHL GMs on the first day of free agency eh? Wow. Some crazy deals yesterday.

Some head scratchers too. Pouliot to the Oil for $4M a year? Really? They guy's good for a point every third game, and a bonehead penalty every third shift... Miller at $6M/year in Vancouver? Didn't they just get out of an overpaid aging goalie mess?

Wild played it smart yesterday I thought. Vanek is a great addition at a reasonable term and manageable money. To put in in perspective, he's getting $1m/year LESS than we were paying Heately... If they'd have had to go 5-6 years at those dollars I'd have said no way. But 3 years is great. He apparently turned down another huge offer from the Islanders to come here. As if the Isles fans didn't hate us enough for the Nino for Cal trade.

Too bad they missed on Mitchell, but for $4.25M/year I'm glad they didn't bite. But they do need a physical D with Stoner gone. Be interesting to see if they go the trade route. The FA D-men left aren't anything to get excited about that's for sure.

And good on Stoner for taking the deal with the Ducks. Seemed liked he was nothing but a good soldier for the Wild, but that's crazy money for a 3rd pair D who plays 12-13 minutes a night.

Our division was already maybe the toughest in hockey. Yesterday it added Richards, Vanek, Iginla, Hemsky, Spezza, and Stansy jumped from one team to another within the division.

Man o man is the Central going to be a brutally tough division next year. Yeesh.