Hockeyville USA
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Hobey Baker candidate for 2024-25? Certainly think it's possible, with the Boston College guys splitting votes, Blake & McGroarty both gone.
Prospect Info: 12th Overall 2024 Draft, LHD Zeev Buium
- Thread starter LastWordArmy
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He really should have made the top 10 last season. With similar or better production he easily makes it this year.
Waiver Draft
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- Jun 27, 2024
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First Light - An Exclusive Q&A with Zeev Buium | Minnesota Wild
“I know that it's a special opportunity, a special moment in my life. I just want to have fun with it.”
www.nhl.com
Blue Ox
Let's Play Hockey!
I temper my optimism with the fact that it's Minnesota sports. That always takes it down a notch.
But I always have a little hope every year.
But I always have a little hope every year.
BagHead
Registered User
I suppose that question depends on where you derive your joy from. If it's from watching an interesting team that can win a lot of games, I think you should be optimistic. If, instead, you're a "Cup or Bust" type of person, probably you should be ever-pessimistic because the odds will be ever against it.
Well actually if you’re a cup or bust person and hoping for just one win in your lifetime of sports fandom the odds would be in your favor. Of course this is MN so the odds when considering the curse are decidedly against. For other markets though it’s totally reasonable to expect a win
Wisconsin Wild? We could change the logo to a big Braut dripping Sauerkraut, in front of a stein of beer.
Joking, of course, but 90% of fans would love the logo change. Name change, not so much. I mean, I still don't get the Wild logo after all these years. It's stupid.
Dr Jan Itor
Registered User
You can't have a curse, unless it's the curse "of something".
Even Boston and Chicago fans thought up silly little stories for theirs.
Even Boston and Chicago fans thought up silly little stories for theirs.
- Dec 10, 2012
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- Dec 10, 2012
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The curse of low expectations?
- Minnesota fans have it ingrained in their minds that their teams will never win championships because they have a long and storied history of not winning championships (save a couple World Series from before a third of the people on this site were born)
- Minnesota sports owners don't have any pressure to win championships because their fans don't expect them to but still show up
- Minnesota doesn't attract top talent because there's no pressure to win championships
- Minnesota doesn't win championships because they don't attract and retain top talent
Or maybe, in the case of the Wild, it's the curse of the comfortable fat cat owner who cares more about profit than championships? It's his money, his prerogative of course. But Leipold doesn't have any pressure to do anything different than what he's done, because he's still making a profit whether the team picks 7th overall or whether the team loses in the first round. Fans still show up to games to give him money. So we're stuck in a cycle of mediocrity where we're never bad enough to collect the types of pieces championship teams have, which means we're never good enough to be contenders for a championship.
Disclaimers:
1) Not interested in getting into a discussion about how strategic planning doesn't always lead to a championship, I know it doesn't always
2) Not interested in hearing about how we have Kaprizov, so we're doing fine without strategic planning, most Cup winners have multiple players above, at, or just below Kaprizov's level, we have one
3) Not interested in hearing about how Leipold always spends to the cap so that means he's a good owner who cares about winning. He does care about winning, he just doesn't care about winning more than profit.
Just a couple of theoretical curses we can run with
- Mar 19, 2023
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I think it's the immigrants fault. Those stupid Swedes leaving home in the 1800's , just to go to a place with the same long, cold winters like they had at home.
Chicken Swedes can't play hockey.
Chicken Swedes can't play hockey.
Saga of the Elk
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I agree with most of what @AKL wrote except I really don't think Leipold is too worried about turning a profit.
It's just what kind of marginal gains can you expect from hiring five additional scouts, five analytics guys, and so on? Do they need three sleep psychologists, a love guru and some more pr staff? Or should the GM not drink and draft guys with little ability to provide NHL offense?
I don't think franchises get complacent. Rather it's the reality of competing in a league that has a salary cap, a lottery system, and markets with structural disadvantages. And I do think Minnesota suffers from that: it's high-tax, the weather is bad, the traffic is bad, the nightlife is dubious, the divisional travel is tough. It appeals to Minnesota-born guys, which is less valuable than it once was. It's got better schools than St. Louis and it's a little nicer than Winnipeg.
It's just what kind of marginal gains can you expect from hiring five additional scouts, five analytics guys, and so on? Do they need three sleep psychologists, a love guru and some more pr staff? Or should the GM not drink and draft guys with little ability to provide NHL offense?
I don't think franchises get complacent. Rather it's the reality of competing in a league that has a salary cap, a lottery system, and markets with structural disadvantages. And I do think Minnesota suffers from that: it's high-tax, the weather is bad, the traffic is bad, the nightlife is dubious, the divisional travel is tough. It appeals to Minnesota-born guys, which is less valuable than it once was. It's got better schools than St. Louis and it's a little nicer than Winnipeg.
- Dec 10, 2012
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I think it's his top priority. That's why he hires GM's who sell him on making the playoffs every year without necessarily ever being a real Cup contender. It's not lost on me that Fletcher and Guerin both had largely similar plans to re-tool on the fly why trying to maintain a playoff caliber team.
I mean all owners want to win, and want to make money, to varying degrees. Some have a higher tolerance for losing money in the short term if they think it means a better chance of winning (and ultimately making more money) in the long term.
Chicago, for example, has an ownership group that doesn't mind losing money for a few years if it means winning 3 Cups. I think Leipold is more conservative when it comes to sacrificing money for a better chance at winning.
As someone who has lived in a variety of other places, you are way underselling Minnesota. The taxes are less, or the same, as many other NHL locales(every Canadian one, CA one, NY one, Bruins, etc.). The traffic is this modest sized city with little in the way of geographical limitations(i.e. Seattle, Van, TB?...don't know the latter too well) is fine compared to at least half of the cities in the NHL... off the top of my head, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, all NY teams, Boston, WAS, Miami, all CA teams, Seattle, CHI, DAL.
Public Schooling in MN consistently ranks near the top in the US, behind MA. Depends on how you want to rank things really, and average rankings don't mean much because hockey players live in more expensive areas that usually have good school systems, and often send their kids to private schools, anyway. Saying that it has better schools than STL and is a little nicer than WPG(I was born in WPG)is ...right, i guess, in the first case(but you neglect to mention all the other locales it also bests in that regard), and flat out wrong in the latter. It is MUCH nicer than WPG. You really think Detroit, Columbus, or Pittsburgh is nicer and more happening than MPLS? Two of those three cities have had all sorts of success in winning Cups.
The weather is about the same or better than in all the Canadian locales except VAN. I will say that my wife prefers the sunshine of Minneapolis to the fog, drizzle, and gloom of VAN and Seattle, which is not for everyone. Let's face it, most hockey players come from heavy winter climates like Canada, Sweden, Finland, Russia, MN, MI, MA. I also find the monster cities like NYC, LA, SF, CHI, and to a lesser extent, TOR, WAS, BOS, Miami to be a PITA to live in, with their bad air, traffic, high prices, etc. Many hockey players feel the same.
I think the problem with MN hockey is that they got some early quasi-success playing a very defensive style under the best coach they ever had, and they haven't been able to get out from under Lemaire's shadow ever since. The Parise and Suter contracts, or rather, the leagues ruling on them, have also crippled the team's improvement. They need a really smart guy, or a couple of them, to lead this team to excellence. I don't think BG is the guy- hopefully I am wrong. I think that he gets another 2-3 years from Leipold to make noise in the playoffs.
The odds that the twins lost all 18 straight of those post season games were 1/600,000 according to the most accurate models anyone could come up with.
That only happens in MN
Gary Anderson , only in MN
Twolves blowing a 20 point second half lead 3x in a 7 game series when it had never been done more than once in 100 years prior
MINNESOTA!!!!!
That only happens in MN
Gary Anderson , only in MN
Twolves blowing a 20 point second half lead 3x in a 7 game series when it had never been done more than once in 100 years prior
MINNESOTA!!!!!
Saga of the Elk
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well, to get back on topic, maybe the last few years of drafting (Wallstedt, Yurov, Buium) is what it takes to turn it around. I don't put too much stock in geography honestly because when you're rich and you travel for work... it doesn't matter that much where you sleep. I do think success brings success and maybe Guerin's swagger along with a good scouting hire adds that marginal edge.
- Dec 10, 2012
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I've been in a few different cities. Not as many as you or maybe some others, but I've done a lot of traveling as well so I at least have an idea.
Taxes play a role, and I'd say they make Minnesota more attractive than the Canadian markets. I don't think they do enough to put Minnesota over New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston.
Public schooling is probably largely irrelevant. Minnesota ranks high in aggregate, but even if these guys aren't sending their kids to private schools, they're living in the upper echelon of society wherever they go, the public schools their kids go to are going to be good whether it's in Michigan, Minnesota, or North Carolina.
Minnesota is probably in the bottom third for weather, if you don't enjoy brutal winters (for the most part, last year being the exception). The coasts are going to have milder climates. Pretty much leaves Minnesota in a group with Buffalo, Toronto, Detroit, Chicago, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa, Montreal... everywhere else is going to have better winters.
A lot of it comes down to personal preference. Minnesotans generally love Minnesota, that's not up for debate. But if you have no emotional ties to the state, I can't see most people putting it in their top 15 or 20 places to play.
On a personal level, I'm pretty picky. The only NHL locations I'd ever want to play in are Vancouver (if I was a star player, not a role player), Seattle, Boston, Carolina, Nashville, Tampa, Dallas, Vegas, (Arizona), (Atlanta).
I'm assuming that is because you know how expensive it is there to buy a house, and how high the taxes are there. SEA has also gotten to be just as expensive housing wise, though the lack of State income tax is nice. Boston is also much more expensive than here- I like it as a city, though...lots to like. The other cities and locales have their charms, though I don't know them all.
Young players and people are usually find with colder weather. It's the older folks that get tired of it after a while. A sizable minority of hockey players like to fish and hunt, and MN is pretty good in that regard.
I'm not saying that MN is a paradise, just saying that it is not some repellent hellhole. It is also not even close to being the worst location in the NHL - I'd say it's somewhere in the middle, unsurprisingly enough. If PIT, EDM, and DET can have Cup winning dynasties, there is no reason that we can't, based on location, anyway. Our location should not be used as an excuse. We are not trying to attract baseball players from Latin America, or hoops guys from southern climes. For every Buium or Matthews, there are 20 players from climates similar to, or worse than here.
