What organizations should the Wild be looking up to?
Detroit, Anaheim, San Jose, Boston - Here's the thing. Minnesota is unique because the talent they have? Most of it were brought in from trades or from free agent signings. We had to supplement the dry years of Riser and the uneven years of Fletcher. We are still looking outside this organization in order to improve instead of looking at what we have within this organization.
Look at 2009 and 2010 drafts - We thought they were good but in hindsight?
Nick Leddy, Matt Hackett, and Alexander Fallstrom were traded. Foucault, Hamburg and Sallinen look like busts. Kuemper and Haula are solid prospects but nothing game breaking. In 2010, Larsson was traded. Bulmer is still developing but is injury prone. Zucker everyone wants to trade. Gustafsson was meh. Granlund is great. McKinlay is a bust.
So, out of 14 prospects, 3 have shown they can contribute to the Wild.
The last 14 picks DR made; Eero Elo, Sean Lorenz, Marco Scandella, Tyler Cuma, Carson McMillian, Harri Ilvonen, Cody Almond, Justin Falk, Colton Gillies, Chris Hickey, Julien Walker, Niko Hovinen, Kyle Medvec, Cal Clutterbuck.
Out of 14 picks, Clutterbuck and Scandella made contributions for the Wild.
If you want to look at players suited up for the Wild; Hackett, Foucault, Gustafsson, Zucker, Larsson and Bulmer all suited up. Cuma, McMillian, Almond, Falk, Gillies. Again 1 more player suited up.
Mind you, this was also the bad drafting years for the Wild and this is three drafts for DR and two drafts for GMCF.
And how many late-round draftees do you expect to contribute? Having two longshots turn into NHL players is quite a bit.
It's not just the long shots- it's the guys like Granlund, like Coyle, like el Nino. Out of all three of them, el Nino leads the bunch in 14 goals scored. These aren't scrubs but 1st round talent players. I agree with Jarick, why wasn't Coyle sent down? We still have gaps where we are rushing our prospects.
Ondrej Palat and Tyler Johnson - both rookies had 50+ points this year.
I would like to see some contributions from our 2nd round picks as well. Who do we have on this team that is a 2nd round pick that has made a significant contribution to this organization? To this team? You have a player like Alex Chiasson, 2nd round pick putting up 35 points. You have a second round talent like Jenner and Toffoli putting up 30 points. Hell both Jenner and Toffoli had more goals than Koivu.
If more late picks cracked the roster it would mean the big club isn't good enough.
Not necessarily. It means you are developing your players correctly if they are making contributions to the team. Who cares if they are a 3rd or a 7th or a 1st round pick. If they score 15-20 goals and have 20-30 assists, who cares if they come from the 7th round. It shows your team is good at developing prospects. It gives the team flexibility. It gives the team room to work with. It gives the team depth.
Chicago and LA has a leg up on Minnesota in the West
How do they have a leg up? LA has constantly traded and modified their roster year after year due to smart drafting.
No roster out East should make the Wild front office blush.
Boston? Detroit? They are constantly churning out good players. Tampa Bay actually looks like they are starting to develop players.
With goaltending on par with LA and Boston the Wild would be playing deep into the playoffs every year
Not really. They ran out of gas against Chicago because they didn't have the depth. The Wild are still struggling to find reliable goal scorers or a player that can turn the game around.
Discussing the idea of adding a guy like Vanek is not an indictment on the Wild's roster quality when pretty much every team in the league would get better by signing him.
It is. And not necessarily every team. Some teams have enough depth internally that they would be fine passing on Vanek because he doesn't do much more than suck up cap space. This team is a bunch of mercenaries - which isn't bad but for growth and longevity, this team needs to start look internally.