Minnesota Wild General Discussion 2024-25

[thestonedkoala]

Minnesota is 3-0-2, gotta find something to bitch about I guess?

Oh I am happy Minnesota is doing well but history tends to repeat itself. The biggest issue is sustained success or even getting over the hump of a series win and then not sliding back (Twins). Injuries decimated the Wild last year and Gus had his issues that didn't help. I do think Minnesota is more than a bubble team this year but I don't think they are contenders. It's the next few years that worry me.

 

[Digitalbooya]

And yet Merrill could be sent down to the AHL without a lot of issues?

So Hunt can be the press box guy instead of Merrill? Sounds great for his development.

A few bad games? The team that Minnesota has put in front of him two years in a row have been defensive liabilities. More so, Wally should be backing up Gus right now. Finally, goalies can be weird just like QBs. A lot of is mental and when you team sucks at defense and you can't rely on them, you pick up really bad habits. We've seen that with a lot of good goaltending prospects that break down mentally.

So which do you want? The prospects playing for Iowa (made argument for Ohgren/Khusnutdinov) or going to the NHL (made argument for Wallstedt up). There’s a high chance that once all of our forwards are healthy Ohgren is sent down. I doubt Khusnutdinov is sent to Iowa. He probably has an NHL or KHL clause in his contract of some sort for the same reason that Yurov didn’t come over this year… He can make more in the KHL while playing similar competition to the AHL.

We should be expecting them to be contributing to the AHL and growing. It's not like O'Rourke, Bankier, Pillar, Spacek don't have a season (or two) under their belt and should be aware of what they need to do.

If they are developing at a top college or another pro league, I’m not sure why it matters if they play for Iowa or not… Would you rather have Zeev playing for Denver or Iowa? Does Faber get knocked because he went from the gophers straight to the NHL? How about Kaprizov? Should we have sent him to Iowa?

Didn't we hear that excuse last year? The impact prospects aren't here. Then we add more. Oh wait, the impact prospects still aren't here. Oh wait...

Yep, and notice that the defenders didn’t change and none of the impact prospects (except Wallstedt) are playing for Iowa.

 

[saywut]

Iowa should be much better than last year, 4 games is a small sample size. If McLean can't pull out ~7 wins by game ~20 then he should be fired with the current group of players provided. It's unfortunate Clarke/Toporowski are injured and Hunt is in the NHL but that's nothing compared to last year at this point when Mermis/Lettieri/Shaw/Milne/Bankier were not available and half the roster was a year earlier into their professional careers, many of them rookies. Shore/Jones aren't going to end up -100 with 0 goals, they're established as quality AHL players. Wallstedt needs to be better, though the GM hasn't exactly handled that situation correctly either.