Minnesota Wild General Discussion 2024-25

[57special]

Two things....

1. It would really, really be ideal for this team to secure a spot asap, so we can afford to give Fleury one more game. We will run with Gus if we make the playoffs, but you don't want Fleury THAT rusty in case he is needed. Plus, he's retiring. Ya gotta give him that final start.

2. Should we secure a spot with a game or two left, do you let Kaprizov play and get the practice? Or do you sit him to avoid an unnecessary injury in a meaningless game?

1- I couldn't care less about Fleury retiring. If we need him we're pretty much done.. It would be nice to give Gus a rest, though.

2- Kap needs to play and get his timing back. If he's that fragile he isn't going to last in the playoffs whern things get way more intense, especially against the animals in WPG. Just cap the TOI at 20.

 

[DigitalBoldy]

Building through the draft is fine, but it requires you to hit on more than just 1st round picks or it's going to take forever.

That’s on Brackett and it is concerning that he hasn’t hit very often with his picks. Guerin has given him plenty of picks to work with.

 

[AKL]

That’s on Brackett and it is concerning that he hasn’t hit very often with his picks. Guerin has given him plenty of picks to work with.

Just wanna point out, Guerin hasn't given him "plenty of picks to work with". He's had 32 picks in 5 drafts. You get 35 by default.

Granted, he's had 7 1sts, 8 2nds, 3 3rds and Brackett absolutely needs to hit on them, but he's still had less overall picks than you get standard.

By comparison, Utah has had 47 picks in those same 5 drafts, 8 1sts, 7 2nds, 8 3rds. That's what giving your scouts plenty of picks to work with looks like.

 

[DigitalBoldy]

Just wanna point out, Guerin hasn't given him "plenty of picks to work with". He's had 32 picks in 5 drafts. You get 35 by default.

Granted, he's had 7 1sts, 8 2nds, 3 3rds and Brackett absolutely needs to hit on them, but he's still had less overall picks than you get standard.

By comparison, Utah has had 47 picks in those same 5 drafts, 8 1sts, 7 2nds, 8 3rds. That's what giving your scouts plenty of picks to work with looks like.

I don’t care about mid to late round picks. I care that he can’t seem to find NHL top 6 or top 4 talent outside of lottery picks. Yurov might be the exception due to the war

1st/2nd round picks:

Khusnutdinov
O’Rourke
Peart
Lambos
(Wallstedt?)
Stramel
Kumpulainen
Heidt
Haight
Lorenz

Great job Brackett… Some people (not you) talk about this guy like he walks on water. I think we need to take a deeper look…

Maybe we need a new director of amateur scouting.

 

[NHL1674]

I don’t care about mid to late round picks. I care that he can’t seem to find NHL top 6 or top 4 talent outside of lottery picks. Yurov might be the exception due to the war

1st/2nd round picks:

Khusnutdinov
O’Rourke
Peart
Lambos
(Wallstedt?)
Stramel
Kumpulainen
Heidt
Haight
Lorenz

Great job Brackett… Some people (not you) talk about this guy like he walks on water. I think we need to take a deeper look…

Maybe we need a new director of amateur scouting.

That is a sad list.

 

[AKL]

I don’t care about mid to late round picks. I care that he can’t seem to find NHL top 6 or top 4 talent outside of lottery picks. Yurov might be the exception due to the war

1st/2nd round picks:

Khusnutdinov
O’Rourke
Peart
Lambos
(Wallstedt?)
Stramel
Kumpulainen
Heidt
Haight
Lorenz

Great job Brackett… Some people (not you) talk about this guy like he walks on water. I think we need to take a deeper look…

Maybe we need a new director of amateur scouting.

Lots of mid round picks become depth players. It's not a major deal but it does matter. Conor Dewar, Jack McBain, Brandon Duhaime, Carson Soucy, Kirill Kaprizov, Nick Seeler and Erik Haula...all solid depth players taken with mid or late round picks. If we draft them, we don't have to give Trenin 3.5M.

But he absolutely needs to find talent in the first and second rounds too, but at the same time, that's a lot easier said than done. Just a quick look through top 6/top 4 guys they could have taken instead...

Brock Faber instead of Khusnutdinov or O'Rourke in 2020
Wyatt Johnston over Wallstedt in 2021
Olen Zellweger (maybe?) instead of Carson Lambos in 2021
Matthew Knies over Jack Peart in 2021

After that it gets hard to say...we're hoping Yurov is a top 6 player, Ohgren looking more like a middle 6, Stramel bottom 6, but we don't know exactly what's behind them yet.

Point being, there haven't been a ton of guys behind the ones we took that developed into top 6 or top 4 players...yet. We just kinda have to keep waiting to see who's what.

For the record, I never understood Peart over Knies from the start.

He definitely doesn't walk on water though.

 

[Wabit]

I don’t care about mid to late round picks. I care that he can’t seem to find NHL top 6 or top 4 talent outside of lottery picks. Yurov might be the exception due to the war

1st/2nd round picks:

Khusnutdinov
O’Rourke
Peart
Lambos
(Wallstedt?)
Stramel
Kumpulainen
Heidt
Haight
Lorenz

Great job Brackett… Some people (not you) talk about this guy like he walks on water. I think we need to take a deeper look…

Maybe we need a new director of amateur scouting.

Discounting the mid/late round picks is a mistake. Those are where the scouts earn their money. You won't get many NHLers out of the picks, but you do get the depth for the AHL team so it's not a tire fire.

 

[f7ben]

Perrault over Stramel fell right into their laps , literally a gift

Nope , can’t have skill and a net filler

Gotta have that pylon with size !!!

 

[DemidovSaveUs]

No matter what happens, I got tickets to the April 15th game so I can hopefully catch Zeev live in his debut before the playoffs

That’s gonna be a sick game if he plays

 

[thestonedkoala]

I don’t care about mid to late round picks. I care that he can’t seem to find NHL top 6 or top 4 talent outside of lottery picks. Yurov might be the exception due to the war

1st/2nd round picks:

Khusnutdinov
O’Rourke
Peart
Lambos
(Wallstedt?)
Stramel
Kumpulainen
Heidt
Haight
Lorenz

Great job Brackett… Some people (not you) talk about this guy like he walks on water. I think we need to take a deeper look…

Maybe we need a new director of amateur scouting.

Or a better GM?

Then again Brackett wasn't that great in Vancouver either.

 

[Wabit]

Or a better GM?

Then again Brackett wasn't that great in Vancouver either.

He wasn't great in VAN because of their GM, or so I've been told.

 

[Waiver Draft]

 

[DigitalBoldy]

Or a better GM?

Then again Brackett wasn't that great in Vancouver either.

Drafting is not directly on the GM. Guerin’s to blame in that he hired Judd Brackett.

He wasn't great in VAN because of their GM, or so I've been told.

Anything to steer blame away from Brackett.

 

[Wabit]

Drafting is not directly on the GM. Guerin’s to blame in that he hired Judd Brackett.

Anything to steer blame away from Brackett.

Oh the GM is for sure to blame. He's the one that has the ultimate say in what happens with all aspects of the team.

I haven't much agreed with the drafting and/or drafting strategy since GMBG took over.

 

[thestonedkoala]

Oh the GM is for sure to blame. He's the one that has the ultimate say in what happens with all aspects of the team.

I haven't much agreed with the drafting and/or drafting strategy since GMBG took over.

Doesn't GMBG basically go this is the team we want find me guys like that?

 

[Wabit]

Doesn't GMBG basically go this is the team we want find me guys like that?

TBH it seems like the drafting has gone BPA according to their internal draft board. The only time it didn't was the Stramel/Kumpa draft year and those 2 were called Gurin picks, not Brackett picks on the boards.

The only directive I could see would be get all the LD possible from the the '20 and '21 draft classes.

 

[AKL]

TBH it seems like the drafting has gone BPA according to their internal draft board. The only time it didn't was the Stramel/Kumpa draft year and those 2 were called Gurin picks, not Brackett picks on the boards.

The only directive I could see would be get all the LD possible from the the '20 and '21 draft classes.

Well Brackett has talked about it publicly before, the scouts consider what type of team Guerin is going for and the types of players he likes when they create their internal board. So to some degree, Guerin is absolutely influencing the types of players they draft.

 

[Dr Jan Itor]

Peart was high on their board in 2021. There were comments from them essentially saying they felt like they had 3 top 20 picks in that draft.

 

[DigitalBoldy]

Peart was high on their board in 2021. There were comments from them essentially saying they felt like they had 3 top 20 picks in that draft.

Those 2021 picks look pretty ugly right now.

 

[f7ben]

Stramel is 100% Guerin , no doubt about it

 

[DigitalBoldy]

Stramel is 100% Guerin , no doubt about it

Yet, not the worst 1st round pick in the 20+ range since Guerin started. Come on down Carson Lambos!

 

[Wabit]

Stramel is 100% Guerin , no doubt about it

I was hoping he'd be signed for next year. Give him the summer to work on his skating and then a year in the AHL to teach him how to use his size at the pro level.

 

[Wabit]

Yet, not the worst 1st round pick in the 20+ range since Guerin started. Come on down Carson Lambos!

Sadly they are both still better that Fenton's first pick...

 

[AKL]

Sadly they are both still better that Fenton's first pick...

Well actually to his point, at least we're going to get 2nd round compensatory picks from both Johansson and Stramel. Lambos is just gonna be a career AHLer, not worth anything close to a 2nd.

 

[Saga of the Elk]

Yet, not the worst 1st round pick in the 20+ range since Guerin started. Come on down Carson Lambos!

It's not really a bad pick when you take a player in the range where consensus has him. A bad pick is a reach against consensus that doesn't work out. I'll concede that great scouts beat consensus, just as great development programs make great players and, ultimately, teams.

Lambos is still just 22, he's a young pro, not a bust. Today it's hard to imagine him with amazing NHL upside, but he could still carve out a career. That range of picks ... that's what you get. He wasn't a needed type of player positionally so I get the frustration but again we haven't seen the entirety of his path.

I find the Stramel pick worse because consensus had him later, while having available players much higher. High-end offense is an ongoing need for the Wild and having a guy like Nadeau, Perreault, Ritchie et al. mighta been nice.