Of course, the Minnesota Wild should be focused on getting younger and faster, as they prepare for when the Parise and Suter penalties fall of before the 2025-26 season. They have a few young, elite prospects like Danila Yurov, Riley Heidt and Liam Ohgren, who will all be close to contributing by then.
Their biggest problem is that they are old, slow and stuck with a roster full of veterans that are fat and happy with no-trade clauses in their contracts, thanks to feeble attempts by Guerin to build a win-now roster without any money. Nonetheless, he appears on the verge of doubling down on those aging veterans, at least for one more year.
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Bruh what is this tone for? this is the free agent market it’s not for young players it’s old players and players looking for a big payday.
Also of course the Wild are gonna try to stay competitive signing a veteran top 6 winger would make sense considering the Wild need their second line to start performing.
If the young guns ain’t ready and the Wild don’t want to trade for a big piece and possibly give up assets why wouldn’t they go into the free agent market and grab somebody for a year? That makes lots of sense and there is a very good list of players for the Wild to try and tempt.
I read that earlier this afternoon.
The tone of that article is the most angsty of Redditors and Hockey Wildnerness posters.
We get it. The team gets it. No one is forcing you be a fan of a team that (by the article’s interpretation) is a dead end, waste of time, and SHOULD do something. There are 31 other teams. That writer is free to bandwagon elsewhere anytime.
Not saying people don’t have the right to complain sometimes, but seriously. Lighten up a little for fuck sake.
When are they not?
I still want nothing to do with Perron, I just can’t handle us handing a ton of ice time to a freaking 36 year old! What the hell is wrong with slotting in Ohgren into the second line with Rossi and Zucc? How does it help us in the future to push these old ass guys?
I’m so bloody bored of “Pissy Angry Minnesota Sports Fan” writers.
That hack Tony Abbot does it, this guy does it, it just becomes exhausting to read and makes me click away.
You’re not being clever, sly, or suave. It’s just aggravating.
Who needs skill when you can have GRIT
I love how Guerin somehow while handicapped built a team that did compete for a playoff spot for many years and now that we’re about to be rid of said handicap it’s all of a sudden a problem that that was the plan. Like did you need a cup during those years? That’d be more impressive than an oilers win tomorrow night.
I’d be stoked if the Wild traded for Travis Konecny.
I’m so tired of the negativity, and the basic lack of understanding of the teams’ situation and what they can and can’t do with the cap penalties.
**The Wild’s options for FAs are**:
-sign a vet that is comfortable playing on a short-term deal or
-no one
Those are the options. The team has virtually no cap space. They can’t sign anyone long-term until 2025, and no young skilled FA would sign for cheap for one year. You want another year of missing the playoffs? Think Kaprizov stays? Guerin is going to try and bring in a vet for one year (the horror) to see if they might help get the team to an 7-8 seed in the west.
After that, here are the everyday players/competing to be everyday players on the roster that are 27 or younger: JEEK (27), Kaprizov (27), Boldy (23), Rossi (22), Declan Chisolm (24), Brock Faber (21), Liam Ohgren (20), Marat Khusnutinov (21), Filip Gustavsson (26), Jesper Wallstedt (21). Riley Heidt will have a legitimate chance in camp to make the club (he’s 19). There are 2-3 D prospects in Iowa under 21 that are probably a year away from competing for a fulltime spot with Minnesota. Are the above players “fat and happy old slow aging vets”??
If I have to see 500 more sarcastic “GRIT” posts or “this team only signs/rosters old slow players” my head is going to explode.
For those that can’t seem to let go of the 3 vet signings last year, the Wild would have to sign a different 3-4 mill/yr FA to take their places this year if they’d have walked or been traded (ps none of their trade values would’ve been very high at the trade deadline last year). Adam Beckman wasn’t filling their spot. I would put my whole mortgage on the line to bet 1 or 2 of the 3 (Zucarello, Hartman, and Foligno) won’t be on the team for their full contract extentions. They don’t have full NMC/NTCs for all 4 years.
I can’t wait for 2025 so the 50% of the fanbase that can’t bother themselves to learn about roster construction while being down $14 mill/yr can stop posting “GRIT” every day.
Leipold didn’t want a tear down and tank job – that’s been clear from the very beginning.
Kaprizov, our most coveted prospect at the time, didn’t want that either.
This team was always going to try and fight for the playoff hunt despite the massive cap penalties from Suter/Parise.
Guerin took the job and was in alignment with Leipold from the start and very likely has a lot of slack left because of the aforementioned cap restraints.
Billy is going to be judged with what he does with the flexibility going forward.
BREAKING: hockey teams want good players
the players named are vlad T and perron. anyone opposed to those two players, assuming they are given a fair contract (russo says 1 to 2 year deals), is a dunce. free agents by their nature, are old. the alternative is he trades assets for young players, and those assets themselves are, by design, young players. you cannot sign “young” free agents because there aren’t any.
I wish the wild as a franchise would one day aspire to be more than an AHL club
Hartman and Foligno could easily be on a cup contending roster. Gaudreau needs a serious bounce back year and Zuccy is realistically aging out of relevance. As said before, Foligno got some mojo going on with both players and front office but i wouldn’t call him fat and happy under any circumstance.