Solving the Mediocre Minnesota Wild

[Admiral Awesome]

I give you my personal money-back guarantee that getting league average goaltending all season, even slightly below league average, would have gained us 6 extra points (max 3 wins, maybe a few extra loser points mixed with one additional win) this season, and we'd be sitting where Dallas is right now.

True, but weren’t they in that same position (3rd in division/#1WC) all those years when they were getting bounced in the quarters or semis? I guess it all depends on how one defines “fixed”.

 

[AKL]

True, but weren’t they in that same position (3rd in division/#1WC) all those years when they were getting bounced in the quarters or semis? I guess it all depends on how one defines “fixed”.

Three of those years they lost to the Blackhawks, two of those times the Hawks went on to win the Cup. The year they ran into the Blues, the Blues got insane goaltending and the Wild just couldn't solve it. This is what it means when they say it takes luck to make deep runs. A lot of it.

If those teams had the current version of Fiala, they probably would have seen more success. Add Kaprizov into the mix, along with the depth we still have, and this team has the potential to be better than its ever been before. Fix the goaltending, and find another top 6 center (two, for when Staal leaves), and they can do some damage. It's still going to take luck, but this team is not as far off from competing as some think. Granted, finding the top 6 centers is a lot easier said than done.

 

[tucker3434]

They've literally had the best defense over the past 5 years, better goaltending would contribute massively to fixing the Wild.

I give you my personal money-back guarantee that getting league average goaltending all season, even slightly below league average, would have gained us 6 extra points (max 3 wins, maybe a few extra loser points mixed with one additional win) this season, and we'd be sitting where Dallas is right now.

I feel like I addressed this with my first sentence. The wild were near top of the league in shooting percentage. So, yes, high shooting percentage and average goaltending likely results in a playoff team. You could apply that logic to any team. If the Stars had had league average shooting percentage with no change to goaltending, they might have been fighting for a division title.

Are the wild the type of top-end offensive team that will maintain their high shooting percentage? Probably not. Their xGF was near worst in the league. So yeah, fix the goaltending, but if large strides aren’t made on the offensive side, that’s still an aging bubble team with 2nd round upside at absolute best.

 

[Wasted Talent]

I feel like I addressed this with my first sentence. The wild were near top of the league in shooting percentage. So, yes, high shooting percentage and average goaltending likely results in a playoff team. You could apply that logic to any team. If the Stars had had league average shooting percentage with no change to goaltending, they might have been fighting for a division title.

Are the wild the type of top-end offensive team that will maintain their high shooting percentage? Probably not. Their xGF was near worst in the league. So yeah, fix the goaltending, but if large strides aren’t made on the offensive side, that’s still an aging bubble team with 2nd round upside at absolute best.

Don't you think having the 6th worst xGF is offset by having the best xGA and 4th best xGF%?

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Maybe they should tank the series against Vancouver for the shot at that sweet sweet #1 pick.

 

[tucker3434]

Don't you think having the 6th worst xGF is offset by having the best xGA and 4th best xGF%?

I think bad offense plus good defense plus average goaltending equals a roughly average team depending on where the PDO falls and special teams.

 

[Spurgeon]

I think bad offense plus good defense plus average goaltending equals a roughly average team depending on where the PDO falls and special teams.

The Wild are an elite defensive team, I'd argue there's not a better defensive team in the league. The advanced statistics overwhelmingly support that. The Top 4 combination that they currently have in place has provided stability for years and dragged teams with horrible goaltending to the playoffs.

Average goaltending would look like great goaltending behind this defense. I haven't looked at this in a while, but I believe that the Wild's defensive numbers are so strong that the xSV% for our goalies was typically somewhere around .930.

If Kahkonen can come in next year and be a good NHL-caliber starter, then the Wild will have a window.

 

[Bruce Granville]

Three of those years they lost to the Blackhawks, two of those times the Hawks went on to win the Cup. The year they ran into the Blues, the Blues got insane goaltending and the Wild just couldn't solve it. This is what it means when they say it takes luck to make deep runs. A lot of it.

In hockey everything is complicated by the presence of the opposite team.

 

[tucker3434]

The Wild are an elite defensive team, I'd argue there's not a better defensive team in the league. The advanced statistics overwhelmingly support that. The Top 4 combination that they currently have in place has provided stability for years and dragged teams with horrible goaltending to the playoffs.

Average goaltending would look like great goaltending behind this defense. I haven't looked at this in a while, but I believe that the Wild's defensive numbers are so strong that the xSV% for our goalies was typically somewhere around .930.

If Kahkonen can come in next year and be a good NHL-caliber starter, then the Wild will have a window.

I don’t buy that. You can sort by xGA in either direction and the corresponding save percentages are all over the map. If Kahkonen is great, it’s on his own merit. And if he is, maybe he can Giguere the Wild into a shot at the cup. But he’ll have to be stellar.

 

[Muikea Bulju]

I’d rather fool myself into thinking I have a shot at a cup and not win it than fool myself into thinking being bad for a stint of time Will Lead my team to a cup. It won’t. Look at all these teams who did what your suggesting: Buffalo, Edmonton, Florida, NJ, etc. All of them spent years of their lives pushing out a miserable product. Some of them will continue to. The reality is, to win a cup you have to be extremely lucky in a number of areas. I’d rather sit in the middle of the pack and watch some competitive, meaningful hockey while I wait to get lucky than be miserable while I wait. Not to mention, the point I was responding to was your argument that we need a rebuild. You obviously haven’t paid any attention to what’s been going on in MN because the rebuild already happened.

Well, you can lie to yourself, but if you check out the teams that have won the Cup during the Salary Cap Era, it's pretty clear you absolutely need to tank in order to get the Cup winning team

Car-Ana-Det-Pit-Chi-Bos-Lak-Chi-Lak-Chi-Pit-Pit-Wsh-Stl

For example, the last winner: St Louis had 1st rounders in 2006 (x2), 2007 (x3), took up Pietrangelo with the 4th overall pick 2008, had 2 1st's in 2010 (Tarasenko, Schwartz) etc.

Wsh, Pit, Chi: it's pretty clear they won due to tanking years earlier.

Lak: they took up Doughty (2nd overall), Brown and Kopitar (#11 overall) via tanking. They traded Schenn (#5 overall) for Richards, a trade which in part led to their 1st cup (15 points in 20 games)

Boston traded away their 1st & 5th overall pick -players to get their cup. Anaheim packaged their former top10 picks for Pronger. Carolina had some 2nd overall Staal guy, and 4th overall Ladd

The only "outlier" here is Detroit, who also took their core from the draft, but just with gigantic luck. (Although they, too, had been helped by high picks Yzerman + Primeau ---> Shanahan, thanks to which they had been able to make other good moves)

So if you want to win, you need to tank. Just don't be so bloody dumb to tank in bad years (Edmonton), or screw it completely

 

[2Pair]

You're the one claiming that Ian Mitchell is a better prospect than Kiril Kaprizov. To think that I even need to have rebuttal to that, just shows how f***ing delusional you are. Go pretend to be a scout somewhere else.

1) He absolutely is
2) I'd take the future potential 1D over the future potential 1W any day.
3) Nobody is pretending to be a scout, just a hockey fan. You call me delusional and yet I back up my opinions with reasons, logic and explanation. You have only ever said 'omg that's so stupid' to every response and then spouted an opinion that parrots what your beat writers say. Cool, I get it, you don't watch or follow prospects outside of highlights on your team's fan-page. That's quite alright and nobody is judging for it. You seem to have set yourself up massively for disappointment. I see it a lot, lots of delusional homers in my team's fanbase.

When keeping it real goes wrong.

I just hope I can find a way to get over the massive disappointment that is Kaprizov.

 

[Kshahdoo]

Can we say now, that Mediocre Minnesota Wild is solved?

 

[P10p]

This thread is full of terrible takes from people who clearly don't know anything about the team they are talking about its hilarious.

 

[summer tooth]

The Wild are giving hope to many folks in Minnesota. They are definitely above mediocre and I think they can beat Los Vegas even if Vegas is wearing their gold helmets.

 

[Oneiro]

Still don’t see it. I think they’re still in Calgary Flames mode - not aware they should blow it up. A nice run and maybe as the West weakens they’ve got a shot. Eichel could change things but not sure there’s enough there to bridge eras with a true retool.

 

[Adrianopolous]

This thread is full of terrible takes from people who clearly don't know anything about the team they are talking about its hilarious.

It's only terrible in hindsight.

 

[ref19]

Still don’t see it. I think they’re still in Calgary Flames mode - not aware they should blow it up. A nice run and maybe as the West weakens they’ve got a shot. Eichel could change things but not sure there’s enough there to bridge eras with a true retool.

huh?

 

[CherryToke]

Strange timing for a thread bump. Lets see how they do against Vegas.

 

[karlstegger]

When keeping it real goes wrong.

I just hope I can find a way to get over the massive disappointment that is Kaprizov.

Only one thing is worse than a sore loser

That said, good luck to Minny, they have been quite fun to watch this year.

 

[P10p]

It's only terrible in hindsight.

Maybe to people who make uniformed opinions and than hide behind "hundsight"

 

[AKL]

Still don’t see it. I think they’re still in Calgary Flames mode - not aware they should blow it up. A nice run and maybe as the West weakens they’ve got a shot. Eichel could change things but not sure there’s enough there to bridge eras with a true retool.

I think this is what posting just to raise your post count looks like. Like talking just to hear yourself talk.

 

[hidek91]

I think this is what posting just to raise your post count looks like. Like talking just to hear yourself talk.

I think that the guy is actually realistic about where this team is.

I'll gladly eat that crow if they beat Vegas but that's a big if

 

[Dr Jan Itor]

I think that the guy is actually realistic about where this team is.

I'll gladly eat that crow if they beat Vegas but that's a big if

Sure. We’re the lower seed after all.

 

[Obvious Fabertism]

Still don’t see it. I think they’re still in Calgary Flames mode - not aware they should blow it up. A nice run and maybe as the West weakens they’ve got a shot. Eichel could change things but not sure there’s enough there to bridge eras with a true retool.

The blow up already happened over the past two years, this year was supposed to be a building year and it has been very successful in that sense. This is a team looking at adding 3-4 rookies to the lineup next year and saw their younger players take big steps forward this year. JEE, greenway, and soucy all took more steps forward, Zuccarello looks like the player we signed after a tough injury year. Kaprizov showed he’s the real deal and Fiala also tore it up after a rough start. The D continues to be elite, with Brodin and Spurgeon having incredible seasons. The goaltending is orders of magnitude better than previous seasons and we have the best depth players that the franchise has ever had in guys like Hartman and Foligno who are locked up going forward.

The expectation was this year would be competitive, but the primes are still 2 years out with an influx of young skill on the way soon

 

[Jets]

They're still mediocre IMO. This season was a bit of an anomaly with the West division being far weaker than most of the rest (LA, SJ, ANA to beat up on) and the shortened/weird schedule lets teams get hot and inflate their records. They have 1 super 24 year old "rookie" and the rest of their guys under 30 are all middle 6ers and 2nd pairing type players. Suter, Spurgeon, Bonino, Johansson, Zuccarello and Parise (kind of) play big roles on the team and are all on the wrong side of 30. This feels more like one last hurrah with the old guard rather than any new resurgence of a strong team/core.