Jarick
Doing Nothing
Thoughts:
Top line looked great as usual. Parise is probably my favorite Wild player now. Does everything so well in every zone. Koivu looked good. Heatley looks slow.
Second line had some chances but kind of sucks defensively. That's going to be a problem. For as much as I banged the "get the scorers together" idea, I'm going to slide back to "make sure you don't have three guys who don't play strong defense" idea.
Or to paraphrase Lou Nanne on KFAN, if you're not scoring goals, you can't let in goals. The second line is giving up lots of chances which have and will result in goals.
Cullen for as much as I crap on him offensively is a very solid defensive forward. No, I don't think he's a top six player. But he's a solid third line guy you can throw out that won't be inept in his end.
To that extent, I am seeing the forwards collapsing WAY too much in the defensive zone at even strength. You can't just let the two point men completely have their way. The Wild forwards are also too clustered in the middle, giving up the boards and losing nearly every puck race or battle.
And of course stupid penalties.
Granlund, sorry, not ready for the NHL. He's been running around lost in his end the last couple games and alternating between getting knocked over or knocked off the puck in the offensive zone. He looks like he's hesitating without the puck and basically stops moving his feet in the neutral zone. Big disappointment from a kid I thought was Calder contender.
Suter - Brodin looked great. Suter moved the puck nicely, as did Brodin, who also made some big time plays. Sure they both made a couple mistakes but I was pretty damn happy watching those two. And it's nice to see D-men who can actually move the puck.
Gilbert I thought played well overall, some shifts were amazing, some were a little rough, but I'm pretty happy on the whole. I thought Stoner looked terrible, especially any time he had the puck on his stick. Russo thought he was great though, maybe I'm wrong.
Scandy-Falk were ok.
Didn't see much out of Backstrom other than he made some excellent saves and had some frightening out-of-position moments.
Top line looked great as usual. Parise is probably my favorite Wild player now. Does everything so well in every zone. Koivu looked good. Heatley looks slow.
Second line had some chances but kind of sucks defensively. That's going to be a problem. For as much as I banged the "get the scorers together" idea, I'm going to slide back to "make sure you don't have three guys who don't play strong defense" idea.
Or to paraphrase Lou Nanne on KFAN, if you're not scoring goals, you can't let in goals. The second line is giving up lots of chances which have and will result in goals.
Cullen for as much as I crap on him offensively is a very solid defensive forward. No, I don't think he's a top six player. But he's a solid third line guy you can throw out that won't be inept in his end.
To that extent, I am seeing the forwards collapsing WAY too much in the defensive zone at even strength. You can't just let the two point men completely have their way. The Wild forwards are also too clustered in the middle, giving up the boards and losing nearly every puck race or battle.
And of course stupid penalties.
Granlund, sorry, not ready for the NHL. He's been running around lost in his end the last couple games and alternating between getting knocked over or knocked off the puck in the offensive zone. He looks like he's hesitating without the puck and basically stops moving his feet in the neutral zone. Big disappointment from a kid I thought was Calder contender.
Suter - Brodin looked great. Suter moved the puck nicely, as did Brodin, who also made some big time plays. Sure they both made a couple mistakes but I was pretty damn happy watching those two. And it's nice to see D-men who can actually move the puck.
Gilbert I thought played well overall, some shifts were amazing, some were a little rough, but I'm pretty happy on the whole. I thought Stoner looked terrible, especially any time he had the puck on his stick. Russo thought he was great though, maybe I'm wrong.
Scandy-Falk were ok.
Didn't see much out of Backstrom other than he made some excellent saves and had some frightening out-of-position moments.