Watch wings/preds last night, watch wings/nucks today...skated in with puck possession and passsing every time. Go see for yourself.
Sure every team does it, but not all the god damn time. All the best teams can bring it over the line with possession and passing.
EDIT: No need for that. I apologize TSK. No reason to put you on blast.
And most people want to buyout Heatley. There is no arguments to be made there. Heatley hasn't produced, he is getting criticized and people want him gone, partly because of the contract. I can't make any arguments about someone that people are criticizing.
Koivu is one of the problems. When has he taken over and dominated a game? Where is he during the games where we need someone to stand up and show the team an EXAMPLE. I've seen Parise do it this year. But Koivu?
Here's what we need from Koivu (1) To stay injury free. Since 2010, he hasn't been able to stay on the ice. (2) To step up and take over the game once in a while. We need him to be a vocal leader not in the locker room but on the ice.
It was just a suggestion.
No, that's part of the problem. The problem with this team is identity. Getting rid of Yeo isn't going to fix the team as much as people hope it will. Plus it just adds more time to the rebuilding.
Getting rid of Koivu and Yeo would give this team a fresh start like what happened to Boston and Joe Thornton.
I think even dropping Heatley is somewhat unrealistic, because his trade value is at an all-time low, the organization loves him and right now it looks like the buyout will have to be used on Harding.
However, there are no arguments for getting rid of Koivu. Of course I'd like to see more goals and more points, but that goes for every single player on this team, even Parise.
You'd be hard pressed to come up with a trade suggestion involving Koivu that would a) make sense for both parties and b) be realistic. If someone were to trade a center of that caliber, it would be someone who's a total cancer in the locker room. You really want that?
For all we know Harding will retire and will be given a cushy job with the Wild. They take care of their own.
Parise is scoring about as well as anyone on this team could. Here's the thing, Koivu led a player only meeting and this is the results of that meeting? His soundbites also sound really canned. I mean come on, at least Parise doesn't dance around the issue and when he's not sick, Parise has turned around games. That's what we need to see from Koivu. We were paying for potential on Koivu and he hasn't performed. I had hoped his 71 point season was just the start but nope. He's either been sitting on the sideline or letting the team go down the drain.
The thing is, we're paying Koivu elite money when he's not an elite player. He's a good player. A solid top 6 forward but he's not an elite forward. Parise is an elite forward. Heatley WAS an elite forward.
You calling Joe Thornton? Brad Richards cancers in the locker room? Jordan Staal? Mike Richards and Jeff Carter, sure, there were rumors.
I agree that Parise is scoring just as well as anybody could on this team. But I wouldn't undermine Koivu's production like you do. I haven't seen where he has "let the team go down the drain" any more than Parise has. But like I said, you see what you want to see.
I haven't seen anything worth complaining about, but you've obviously seen it for much longer than this season. And like I've said before, I don't give a flying **** about what the players say in post-game interviews. Same ****, different day. If I took a drink every time someone said "we just didn't show up", I'd be able to get totally wasted every single night. Then they move on to the next game and a lot of the time end up saying the same thing again. It's about as cliched as it gets, but like I said, I don't care.
As for the money, you think Koivu wouldn't have gotten the same money as a UFA? Some other team would've offered it to him, there weren't that many high-quality UFAs that summer.
A lot of good players in this league are overpaid and for example there's no way I would've paid Suter the money he ended up getting, but if we hadn't done it, someone would have.
It's not the players' fault they have money thrown at them. Most sane people would go for the team offering the most money if they had little preference on where to live, who to play with, etc. My point here is that if you want to call Koivu overpaid, you need to say the same thing about Heatley, Suter and even Parise (considering his current point total is the same as Koivu's).
As for the locker room cancer issue, there are of course exceptions, like J. Staal. He is a fine 2nd line center on any team, but unfortunately for him he happened to be stuck behind Crosby and Malkin. Pittsburgh had three top 6 centers. How many teams are in the same situation now? None.
The kind of trades you want to make don't happen often and mostly exist in fantasies. And making that kind of a trade would mean that the Wild had to have at least some interest in giving up Koivu, which they do not have.
TSK, I've already shown that Koivu is a top 30 point producing center in the NHL. By definition, that makes him a top line center. No, he's not elite. But he's a top line center.
It makes no sense to trade Koivu. Why would you do it? You're not going to get a player better than him in the deal. Just some spare parts. He's under contract long term and still in his prime.
Are you going to turn that top line center spot over to Brodziak? He was our top line center half of last year and scored a whopping 44 points. Which is what Mikko scored in 55 games. Brodziak played 82. Oh yeah, and Mikko was a +10 while Brodz was a -15.
Literally the only thing he doesn't do is score goals. He sets them up. That's fine. Put goal scorers on the line with him. Put Seto on that right wing. I'll forgive Koivu for only getting 15 goals a year if his linemates combine for 50+.
You say you want this team to get better but you want to trade one of the best forwards on the team? How exactly does that make the team better again?
Because we need to rebuild? What have we ever built? Who are the aging cornerstones of the team? We already moved off all the old players. Gaborik and Brunette and Schultz and Walz and everyone from the mid 2000's.
We're still building. We brought in Parise and Suter and Havlat. Moved Havlat, Burns, and Schultz for Heatley, Setoguchi, Coyle, and Gilbert. We drafted Granlund, Zucker, Larsson, Dumba, Phillips, Bulmer, and some very good goalies.
Does Mikko need to step it up? Hell yes he does. He has 3 points in his last 11 games. But he had 8 points in the previous 6 games. But so does Parise. He has 3 points in his last 12 games. But he had 9 points in the previous 5 games.
I think Koivu is a good player, maybe even great. I think he takes more blame than he deserves, yes, he isn't lighting up the scoreboard, but in general we do not get a lot of point production from the center position. (Cullen lately, but he's hit or miss) If we had a good scoring 2nd line center(Jeff Carter?), I don't think this would be an issue. But, since our centers do not produce much, Koivu takes a lot of heat for not tearing it up. Again, Koivu is a good player, but he would be great with a point scoring 2nd Center. Like a 1A/1B kind of situation where someone would compliment his two way game with pure offense.
I don't know if any of this makes sense, I need to go to bed.
Yes. Other teams do dump and chase, but not all the time. Good teams will carry the puck over the blue line much, much more than the Wild do. If all you do is dump and chase, the other team will just stop moving and block your forecheck. If you mix it up sometimes and handle the puck, they have to respect the option and keep moving. Wild don't mix it up nearly enough.
Why search for bargain bin deals when you have a guaranteed top 30 player at the position? Actually #18 in point production per game since 2008-09.
It's not Fletcher's job to "shake up the team". It's Mike Yeo's. You're not supposed to have to trade players to get their attention. If it comes to that, you need a different coach.
Also, Koivu's not the only guy who's struggling. If he were the only one, yes you may have a point with the square peg round hole bit. But who is this system really working out for?
And who do you want to build around? Parise? If so, we need to find a center who can get the puck deep and work the boards and cycle with him, feed it back and forth out front...isn't that Koivu?
Heatley is the square peg in a round hole. People are so concerned about replacing his 24 goals (a pace that continues to drop and by the end of this week it will probably be under 20) they don't stop to think about how much he is hurting Koivus and Parises production. The player who replaces Heatley doesn't have to equal him in goals if the whole line sees an increase in points without Dany slowing them down.
These people who want Koivu gone are nuts, there isn't another center on this team who could cover Danys slow ass and floating around watching. Move Heatley permanently out of that line and then leave him off of it forever. Find Koivu and Parise their line mate that they are going to play with for years forward, if Coyle doesn't work then next man up. The future is centered around Koivu and Parise, not Koivu, Parise and Heatley. Heatley lovers have no reason to freak out because the Wild are on the fringe of a playoff spot without Dany or that top line doing much of anything so what is the difference if they try Coyle for a good stretch?
Team's don't give our forwards much respect though. And why should they, Fletcher didn't build this team on speed or skill. Teams force us to dump it and we can't come back out with the puck. Try to drive the puck into the zone, there's only a couple guys capable of doing that on a consistent basis.
Its Fletcher's job to surround Mike Yeo with players capable of playing his system. We're almost 20 games into this year and I can't say we've had one game that Mike Yeo should be happy with how the Wild played for 60 minutes schematically. Effort has been there plenty nights, but when you don't know what you're supposed to be doing, then your linemates don't know what to do either and effort only goes so far.
If the players are refusing to buy in, Mike Yeo should be fired, because if he can't communicate with the players he has no business coaching them. But when Zach Parise and Ryan Suter signed with the Wild they signed to play for Mike Yeo, so its would surprise me if a mutiny happened already. But if its not a mutiny, then what is the excuse? Are players still not mentally prepared to play the game? That's inexcusable on the players' part.
Zach Parise and Ryan Suter reached out to Dany Heatley prior to signing with the Wild. He has the respect of our top players. We have moved him off that top line multiple times, much to my surprise and he's impressed me with how he's responded at times, which along with the lack of success of his replacement is why Yeo constantly moves him back up. Charlie Coyle had his stretch, and missed 5+ goals easily. He's going to have to do alot to earn that opportunity again, though his goal last game was a solid start. I'm not 100% sold that taking Dany Heatley off the top line makes us a better team. I wouldn't mind giving Granlund/Bouchard/Setoguchi an opportunity on that line, but we've got to make the other lines work too.
Why search for bargain bin deals when you have a guaranteed top 30 player at the position? Actually #18 in point production per game since 2008-09.
It's not Fletcher's job to "shake up the team". It's Mike Yeo's. You're not supposed to have to trade players to get their attention. If it comes to that, you need a different coach.
Also, Koivu's not the only guy who's struggling. If he were the only one, yes you may have a point with the square peg round hole bit. But who is this system really working out for?
And who do you want to build around? Parise? If so, we need to find a center who can get the puck deep and work the boards and cycle with him, feed it back and forth out front...isn't that Koivu?
with a win tomorrow we could be in 5th place in the division. theoretically.
You mean Conference, right?
You mean Conference, right?
Or a loss and we're fifth in the Division. Detroit is sitting 5th in the Conference and is 3 points ahead.