Prospect Info: 12th Overall 2024 Draft, LHD Zeev Buium

[AKL]

I'm assuming that is because you know how expensive it is there to buy a house, and how high the taxes are there.

Yeah, it's ridiculous. But it's also a very nice city if you can afford it.

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.

Yep, Seattle and Boston are also expensive, but I really love those cities outside of that. Think you can have a good lifestyle there even on 2M per year, but my love for the cities themselves outweighs the money factor here.

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 -

For sure, I don't think any of the NHL cities are hellholes (though I can't fathom living in Winnipeg under any conditions)

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.

Based on location, no, although Detroit hasn't had much success since they were able to get Europeans for pennies on the dollar. PIT and EDM of course had the whole generational talents thing going for them. Outside of those periods, they haven't been very successful franchises.

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.

I would say that in order for us to use location as an excuse, we would have to build an attractive organization that people would want to play for. I don't think we've ever had that because the on-ice product is always mediocre. We need to build a good product through the draft, consistently. Hopefully we're doing that now with Kaprizov, Boldy, Rossi, Buium, Yurov, Wallstedt, (Faber), but we'll see.

 

[Dr Jan Itor]

The weather is just always going to be what it's going to be. You play in Florida (or LA or Dallas or Vegas) and you can golf on your off days and you float in your pool. You play in Minnesota and you can't. Is what it is.

 

[DigitalBoldy]

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.).

I mean, when you compare it to other tax hell locations, that’s not saying much.

It would be funny if Guerin was the GM who set this team up to win a Cup by prioritizing the draft and hiring an excellent scouting team.

Rossi/Yurov/Buium/Wallstedt/Heidt/Ohgren/Khusnutdinov/Hunt/Lorenz/Ritchie/Stramel/Peart/Kumpulainen/Bankier/etc

I’ve never been more excited for a group of prospects. That includes the Granny class.

 

[Dr Jan Itor]

We just need to pass a law that subsidizes athlete home purchases. Just think if the taxpayers could fund 35% of Kaprizov's next house here. We could get him crazy cheap.

 

[57special]

I mean, when you compare it to other tax hell locations, that’s not saying much.

It would be funny if Guerin was the GM who set this team up to win a Cup by prioritizing the draft and hiring an excellent scouting team.

Rossi/Yurov/Buium/Wallstedt/Heidt/Ohgren/Khusnutdinov/Hunt/Lorenz/Ritchie/Stramel/Peart/Kumpulainen/Bankier/etc

I’ve never been more excited for a group of prospects. That includes the Granny class.

All of Canada, and most of Europe is a tax hell compared to MN. Just ask our resident Swedes and Finns what they pay in Income tax. Now, that blow is softened when you take into account how inexpensive their education and health systems are compared to ours, but hockey players usually aren't worried about those two things. Minor league hockey players, sure.

I do like how Guerin has prioritized the draft compared to Fletcher. Fletcher did pick a good one in Brodin, and a great one in Kaprizov, but in general, Guerin and Brackett appear to be better drafters. Wallstedt, Yurov, Buium all appear to be good choices, relative to where they were drafted. I am getting worried that the D group (Hunt, ROR, Peart, Spacek, etc. are going to be duds, or underwhelming). We'll not know for another 3-4 years.

 

[AKL]

We just need to pass a law that subsidizes athlete home purchases. Just think if the taxpayers could fund 35% of Kaprizov's next house here. We could get him crazy cheap.

As someone who doesn't pay Minnesota taxes, I'm on board

 

[DANOZ28]

i've threatened to move to florida several times , last hurricane my car would have been 3 feet underwater now milton probably 10 feet underwater! YIKES the place i almost bought on tampa bay condo with garage. back to zeev im so amped next year to see zeev / faber tear up the entire nhl on D.

 

[Prior]

As someone who spends time traveling to many of these cities and meeting clients and customers at some locations I wouldn’t regularly visit in my personal life which NHLers likely would to some degree, there’s only a handful of teams I’d have as clear advantages over Minnesota. Granted that is coming as a Minnesotan who plans to live here until I retire.

Vancouver- the best city in North America in my opinion. Beautiful, clean, has whatever you need.

Nashville- mild climate relative to the extremes. Can experience whatever speed you are looking for.

Utah- the money here along with nature brings a unique experience.

There are some hell holes which you couldn’t pay me enough to live in. St. Louis, Dallas, Ottawa, Montreal, Winnipeg, Tampa Bay, and Edmonton are all awful in their own ways.

 

[DANOZ28]

i like tampa bay but im not interested in losing all my crap in a hurricane.

 

[Wabit]

The Twin Cities is a nice area for the low to mid range contract players that enjoy winter. The CoL is decent, taxes are better than Canada, the housing market isn't crazy, and there are enough things to do to keep the wife/kids happy and not break the bank.

 

[Wabit]

i like tampa bay but im not interested in losing all my crap in a hurricane.

Don't have a lot of crap, buy an old uhaul box truck, an bug out with your stuff when when they tell you too. Problem solved. As an added bonus when you come back you'll have a bunch of new crap the hurricane left on your doorstep as a going away present.

 

[BagHead]

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

Yeah! It's true that more coin flips means more chances to get a certain outcome, and that the odds for at least one coin having that outcome as more coins are introduced to the flip increases the odds of that outcome happening. On a long enough timeline/enough coins, every outcome is *near certain.

*near because technically every coin flip from now till the end of the Earth could result in a tails, there is no law of the universe forcing a heads result.

That said, the NHL won't last forever (though it is indefinite), and each year that the Wild don't win is another year that no longer counts toward the "flips". In that way, the Wild had their best odds of winning a future Cup in their first season, and their odds have been going down ever since.


Stop reading here if you don't want to read a soapbox stance.

The odds also needs to account for how well-run a franchise is. A team that is perpetually bad would still have poor odds of ever winning a Cup, because even infinity times zero is still zero (in reality no team is perpetually terrible, even if they do look that way on a couple decades timeline).

If we want to use the math of odds to our advantage, I believe (I haven't actually done the math) the best bet is actually doing what the Wild are doing and have been doing: not tanking, being as good as they can be regardless of personnel, and getting as many cracks at the playoffs as possible. Just because they've not made it out of the 1st round in years due to the dearth of top talent doesn't mean they won't win the Cup eventually with that dearth of top talent. It also doesn't mean they will, and that's why the future is unknowable. Outliers happen, and sometimes only outliers happen. That's not a curse, it's math.

Don't have a lot of crap, buy an old uhaul box truck, an bug out with your stuff when when they tell you too. Problem solved. As an added bonus when you come back you'll have a bunch of new crap the hurricane left on your doorstep as a going away present.

Damned socialist hurricanes.

 

[f7ben]

Yeah! It's true that more coin flips means more chances to get a certain outcome, and that the odds for at least one coin having that outcome as more coins are introduced to the flip increases the odds of that outcome happening. On a long enough timeline/enough coins, every outcome is *near certain.

*near because technically every coin flip from now till the end of the Earth could result in a tails, there is no law of the universe forcing a heads result.

That said, the NHL won't last forever (though it is indefinite), and each year that the Wild don't win is another year that no longer counts toward the "flips". In that way, the Wild had their best odds of winning a future Cup in their first season, and their odds have been going down ever since.


Stop reading here if you don't want to read a soapbox stance.

The odds also needs to account for how well-run a franchise is. A team that is perpetually bad would still have poor odds of ever winning a Cup, because even infinity times zero is still zero (in reality no team is perpetually terrible, even if they do look that way on a couple decades timeline). If we want to use the math of odds to our advantage,

I believe (I haven't actually done the math) the best bet is actually doing what the Wild are doing and have been doing: not tanking, being as good as they can be regardless of personnel, and getting as many cracks at the playoffs as possible. Just because they've not made it out of the 1st round in years due to the dearth of top talent doesn't mean they won't win the Cup eventually with that dearth of top talent. It also doesn't mean they will, and that's why the future is unknowable. Outliers happen, and sometimes only outliers happen. That's not a curse, it's math.



Damned socialist hurricanes.

When the outliers however improbable , defy statistical probability over and over and over again….. to strike at one market….thats a curse

 

[Al Lagoon]

Jesus Christ, taxes. They help fund schools, police, fire, roads, libraries, infrastructure etc., and tend to elevate the quality of life of the ENTIRE community. If a multi-millionaire athlete objects to any of that, go to hell.

I've lived in an anti-tax state, Oklahoma, and everything is lowest common denominator, not to mention the anti-science, all-in extremist Christianity. Like Florida, Tennessee, Utah, Texas.

 

[AKL]

Yeah, look no further than California to see how taxes elevate the entire community

 

[Wild925]

Anyways… how bout that Zeev Buium kid?

 

[Wabit]

Anyways… how bout that Zeev Buium kid?

Now I'm wondering how much NIL money he's making and what his taxes are.

 

[AKL]

Now I'm wondering how much NIL money he's making and what his taxes are.

This stuff should be public, at least the public universities anyway. Which wouldn't help us with Buium. All I can find about NCAA hockey is that some top prospects are making low six figures.

 

[Wabit]

This stuff should be public, at least the public universities anyway. Which wouldn't help us with Buium. All I can find about NCAA hockey is that some top prospects are making low six figures.

I disagree, unless the university is paying the players directly. The players are private individuals and their info should stay that way.

 

[AKL]

I disagree, unless the university is paying the players directly. The players are private individuals and their info should stay that way.

The schools can pay the players, at least in football. I don't know if it would be different with hockey, other than maybe the schools don't want to give their money to hockey players. But that would be the money I'm talking about.

 

[Wabit]

The schools can pay the players, at least in football. I don't know if it would be different with hockey, other than maybe the schools don't want to give their money to hockey players. But that would be the money I'm talking about.

The public colleges should have to disclose how much they are paying their players, because they players are paid employees of the school imo. The outside money a player gets in NIL deals shouldn't be required to be public info.

I don't know how much (if any) NIL money Zeev is getting this year. It is something I wonder about with college players that I have an interest in.

As a side note. I do think the NHL needs to change it's college player draft rights rule before some form of tampering happens.

 

[AKL]

The public colleges should have to disclose how much they are paying their players, because they players are paid employees of the school imo. The outside money a player gets in NIL deals shouldn't be required to be public info.

Yeah we're definitely saying the same thing

 

[DigitalBoldy]

Yeah, look no further than California to see how taxes elevate the entire community

Right… California is a shit hole full of the opposite end whack jobs. And before this gets taken as a political thing, there are whack jobs in every state and of all backgrounds.

I’ve spent a decent amount of time in Wisconsin and Indiana. Wisconsin is a higher tax state. They definitely have better roads. Indiana definitely had the better high school and below education. Bit of a culture shock when I went to a high school that had take home laptops for every student. I think that is way more common nowadays across the board.

Anyways… how bout that Zeev Buium kid?

Pretty good. Fantastic start to the season!

 

[Sad People]

Well this conversation got a little weird. But hey might as well chime in.

California is f***ing awesome moved here when I was 18 from Minnesota and I couldn’t ever imagine living somewhere else. Does it have rough parts? Yes just like any other city and or state in this country.

Homelessness is a problem but it really shouldn’t be that big of a surprise when the government actively chooses not to do anything about or get those people help many of whom have battled with addiction, alcoholism or severe mental health issues their entire lives? Many of whom probably didn’t have the family support that you or I have had either. Who would thought a state that’s 70 degrees year around has a homeless problem over a state like Minnesota where it’s below freezing for 6 months outta the year? Crazy I know.

With all that said it’s definitely not for everybody this state chews and spits people out like no other.

 

[57special]

CA is a rock star place, but like many rock stars, there are some pretty ugly underlying stories. For me, it's mostly about the COL there, but if you have a house bought and paid for in a decent area then life can be pretty good.

I'm sure Zeev Buium would agree with everything I've said, and he applies those ideas to his hockey playing, which will be benefitting the Wild as soon as next spring. So, go California! Go DU! Go Zeev!