Wild 2015-2016 Season

[hoppe56307]

I would say the closest thing to an enforcer would be either Porter or Carter.

[CaptainMusky]

Prosser mixed it up a few times last year.

 

Not liking the looks of Dubnyk and some plaguing knee injury. It was visible Saturday and last night when he came in for Kuemper.

Kuemper didn't look good, but our D coverage was terrible at the beginning of the game. Nice come back though.

[Bear55]

Our D and goaltending hasn't been good, hard to say if that is because of Sydor or because of the new pairings, I really liked them at first as I though we could run 3 units and not wear down Suter as much but man I am starting to long for the days of Suter/Brodin & Spurge/Scandella with Dumba on 3rd pair and spot duty. Hope they work something out soon.

[hoppe56307]

I am just glad they are limiting Suters minutes more, he has yet to play over 29min in a game this year.  Last year at this time he already played a couple of games at 32 and 33. Granted the 33min game was an overtime game.

[Bryce]

Sitting in a bar for supper so couldn't hear the explanation of why that hit on Fontaine was not a major. Big run and then knee to knee. Hope the league steps up with suspension.

[wormdunker]

The reason it was not a major is because it wasn't.  I hate the Hawks with a passion but in this case, Fontaine veered toward the neutral zone shifting his weight to his right leg and leaving his left leg trail.  Desjardin never changed his path but he did attempt to throw a body check with his upper body.  All that was left to hit was the trailing left leg of Fontaine with his own leg.

Taking into consideration the speed of the game in real time, no way this should have been nor should it be considered for further penalty. 

The worst announcers in hockey  (Dumb butt 1 and Dumb butt 2) have the ability to fan flames that don't exist due to their stupidity.  Thankfully Wes Walz finally stepped in and clarified that due to the speed and agility of todays players these types of collisions happen,  He went on to say that 20 years ago this would have been a head on head hit because neither would have been fast enough to get out of the way.  Fontaines quickness, awareness and agility were unfortunately responsible for this injury.

[Bryce]

Different than Matt Cookes hit how?

[wormdunker]

Different than Matt Cookes hit how?

Two words, Matt Cooke.  He led with his knee, he pursued the contact, he altered his path to make the contact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caCuIMmo_TM

 

 

[Bryce]

Fontaine listed as week to week. Dirty hit even if he didn't mean it. Cutting left into contact. Leads with knee and elbow. Player initiating contact responsible for body control. https://youtu.be/I_U8p9GqSf4

Edited October 31, 2015 by Bryce

[10,000 Casts]

Yup I agree, it was a dirty hit.. But we don't have anyone that can make him pay for it and the refs only gave him a minor so carry on. 

Duubnyk is amoungst the leagues worst goalies for the start of the season and yet we're 7-2-1. We better keep scoring a lot of goals.

[wormdunker]

Dirty? No, at full speed no way you avoid the contact.  SUCK yes.  Kid is injured, Wild miss him.  Yes Doobs can be shaky.  Would love to see Backstrom get a shot over Kuemper but it will never happen.  We have the hardest working player in hockey, Parise is the hardest working player I have ever seen.

[CaptainMusky]

The only difference between the Matt Cooke hit and Desjardins' is the one involved Matt Cooke. Desjardins may have leaned with his upper body more, but either way you can clearly see his leg is out to make contact. If anything he leaned his upper body over to "make it look good".

Unfortunately with the makeup of this team we are going to be more susceptible to plays like this because there is no consequence other than getting a power play and scoring. No one out there can take care of business.

Regarding the overall play, well, we should be pleased with their record thus far, but the D zone coverage is shaky at best. Dubnyk hasn't looked great, but IMO its more of an issue with the coverage with forwards and D in our zone vs his play. He may start slow in a game, but he has come up big in each and every game down to the last minute after a softy here or there.

Thankfully we are scoring. We need our D zone cleaned up and then we will really have something.

IMO there are two uncharacteristic things of this team through 11 games. Our D zone coverage is poor and we are scoring at a high rate. I predict the D issue will get rectified, but hopefully the scoring continues. Lots of balance thus far.

Nice to see Haula get his first, I think he has been playing much better than last year.

[wormdunker]

From Russo's Blog......

"Fontaine’s injury occurred last Friday when he was struck with a knee-on-knee hit by Chicago’s Andrew Desjardins. The Blackhawks forward was not disciplined by the NHL because the league felt Fontaine left his leg in the line of contact when he tried to avoid the oncoming checker. The league didn’t feel Desjardins led with the knee or stuck it out to make contact, thus feeling it was an unfortunate but unintentional incident."

This sounds familiar......and correct.

From me minutes after it happened.....

"The reason it was not a major is because it wasn't.  I hate the Hawks with a passion but in this case, Fontaine veered toward the neutral zone shifting his weight to his right leg and leaving his left leg trail.  Desjardin never changed his path but he did attempt to throw a body check with his upper body.  All that was left to hit was the trailing left leg of Fontaine with his own leg.

Taking into consideration the speed of the game in real time, no way this should have been nor should it be considered for further penalty. 

The worst announcers in hockey  (Dumb butt 1 and Dumb butt 2) have the ability to fan flames that don't exist due to their stupidity.  Thankfully Wes Walz finally stepped in and clarified that due to the speed and agility of todays players these types of collisions happen,  He went on to say that 20 years ago this would have been a head on head hit because neither would have been fast enough to get out of the way.  Fontaines quickness, awareness and agility were unfortunately responsible for this injury."

 

This was not a dirty play but very unfortunate. 

Edited November 3, 2015 by wormdunker

[wormdunker]

James Neal Knee on Parise definitely a suspendible offense.  talk He extended his knee directly into the side of #11's knee From behind.  He altered his course extended his knee and took Zach's leg out and covered it up with a lame one-just-like-silly-me attempt at a body check.  Definite fine hope a game or 2 suspension.

[O.T.C.]

The slash on Zucker's calf and we got Bulmer trying to take on Matt Beleskey ? We have zero toughness and that will be our downfall throughout the season, get in the Wild's face cuz they won't and can't do nothing about it. There's 1 guy we need to add to our roster, he's 6'9" tall and weighs about 265, Zdeno Chara needs to come to Minnesota. We'd get that toughness, a little scoring and a clear lane for Dubnyk. 

[ANYFISH2]

What was with the 1 on 3 scuffles throughout the game?  Seemed kinda cheap to me.  For a team that is transitioning to a more finesse game, Boston was by far the tougher team.

[bobberineyes]

The way it's going we won't have many starters healthy come end of the season.  This team always had muscle on it until the last few years, the fans want it, the finesse players need it. To many pretty boys not wanting to get there knuckles scratched by a helmet is what we have. 

[knoppers]

zucker will play Saturday, that slash was not that bad, I was thinking it was something more serous like a MCL or ACL. this team is missing parise in a bad way, they need to score with the other snipers we have, like vanek, and pomms. this is just a bad stretch, and they WILL turn it around.

[Bryce]

Just back from game. Yuck. First pariod looked good. 2nd OK. 3rd was horrible. No skating at all. Kuemps didn't stand a chance. Shots on goal show the story of this game. 

[fishersofmen]

On the bright side I thought Kuemper played great too bad the team let him down. Have fun with Yeo at practice boys!

[hoppe56307]

How long till the calls for Yeos head start?  I am already on the fence that he has "lost the room."

[Bobby Bass]

Nice win over the Hawks tonight..

[CaptainMusky]

That was a great win! Wasn't the prettiest, but the Wild capitalized on a few opportunities which the Hawks rarely give you.

I still scratch my head at Suter. His comments about "I don't know what they were thinking" in response to being paired with Brodin (another lefty) are perplexing to me. 1) that pairing was very solid in years past 2) the amount of ice time Suter gets there is no way he is going to be out there with only Spurgeon.

Im trying to "armchair" GM and figure out a deal where we can get a solid center and a d man. Spurgeon would be part of the deal for a couple reasons, 1) he has value 2) we likely wont be able to sign him this offseason. So, the question is what to bundle with him to get something decent in return?

[BartmanMN]

Big Buff is possibly available.  Tried to move him to Islanders, but couldn't make the money work.

[leechlake]

love to get him just so we don't have to play against him.