What is The Daily Clutter you might ask or maybe you’re not?
It’s pretty simple. We’re going to send out a daily post to update our fans, The ClutterPuckers, on anything about Minnesota Hockey or hockey in general and we might sprinkle in some other things just for fun, too.
Hopefully, you’ll come along and enjoy what we do! #Poetic…
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Minnesota Wild
The Record: 16-15-4 (W-L-OTL)- 36 points, 7th in NHL Central Division
2023-24 Minnesota Wild Schedule and Results
Last Game:
3-2 L vs Winnipeg Jets
G Marc-Andre Fleury’s 1,000th Game didn’t go well so he’s still 1 game away from tying G Patrick Roy for 2nd place in Career Regular Season Wins
Next Game:
Tomorrow vs Calgary Flames at 7 pm on Bally Sports North
Calgary is 15-16-5 with 35 points & 4-4-2 in their last 10 games. The Wild need to get back to winning and hopefully, they watched some film of the 2 losses to Winnipeg and realized they got away from their game.
NHL Hockey Standings
Unfortunately for the Minnesota Wild, the 2 losses over the weekend also came with 2 major losses on the ice. G Filip Gustavsson had to leave the game after the 2nd period on Saturday afternoon due to a lower-body injury. He’s now listed as week-to-week and was placed on Injured Reserve (IR) today. They recalled G Zane McIntyre from Iowa for Sunday’s game.
Minnesota Wild F Kirill Kaprizov was also injured in Saturday night’s game in Winnipeg. He was cross-checked in the ribs twice by Winnipeg Jets D Brendan Dillon. No call was made on either of them but Wild D Jake Middleton fought Dillon not long afterward. Pat “It was…” Maroon also dropped the gloves against Jets F Adam Lowry to start yesterday’s game. It makes you wonder why these fights need to happen and yes, they might happen anyway but if a call is made like it should be then maybe the cheap shots wouldn’t happen as often. Should the league & the Department of Player Safety fine any type of cross-check to a player’s ribs? Would it matter? The Minnesota Wild’s best player is now also listed as week-to-week and the player who injured him got off scott-free. It makes a lot of sense, right?
Officiating is far from easy but a lot of these missed calls are right in front of them. One infuriating thing is officials have different interpretations of what a penalty is or is not. There are way too many hits that don’t result in any call so the players feel they have to take it in their own hands to let the other team know it’s bad Clutter to hit like that.
This hit on Minnesota Wild F Marcus Johansson wasn’t called for anything so a Wild player had to do some talking with their fists. That player… “It was… Maroon.”
Fans of the offending player’s team are usually a good barometer on whether the hit is legal or not:
It was “a clean shoulder check” even though Wotherspoon left his feet, hit Johansson in the head and… oh yeah… the puck had yet to get to either player before the hit.
Minnesota Wild F Marco Rossi earned his first career Gordie Howe Hat Trick when he defended teammate Kirill Kaprizov after he was hammered into the boards by Montreal Canadiens D Kaiden Guhle and that sure looks like a boarding penalty, doesn’t it?
The Minnesota Wild are without D Jonas Brodin because of a similar situation. This hit wasn’t called for anything and Brodin has been out since December 9th.
The Department of Player Safety issued a Warning though. Yeah… that’ll take care of it!
Minnesota Wild Prospects
The Wild post a Prospect Report every Wednesday to show what their prospects have done this season:
A PDF is always attached with the players’ updated stats for this season.
All of the Wild prospects in the Canadien Hockey League are doing very well with all of them averaging a point per game except D Kalem Parker. C Riley Heidt is averaging 2 points per game with 18 goals & 46 assists in 32 games for the Prince George Cougars. He’s currently at 68 points as he’s added 2 goals & 2 assists in the 2 games since the report came out.
2024 IIHF U20 World Junior Championships
If you’re not familiar with this annual tournament of the best under-20-year-old players in the world, you are missing out.
The preliminary round wasn’t as exciting as we’re used to, especially for the USA team with a couple of their games being huge blowouts (11-3 over the Swiss & 10-2 over Slovakia). The quarterfinals of the medal rounds begin tomorrow morning. Team USA plays Latvia. Here’s the schedule for the rest of the tournament:
Three players in the tournament are Minnesota Wild prospects:
Forwards Servac Petrovsky (Slovakia), Rasmus Kumpulainen (Finland) & Liam Ohgren (Sweden) who is the team captain for Sweden.
There are also 4 Minnesota Gopher players on the Team USA team:
4 Gopher Hockey Players make the roster for the 2024 IIHF U20 World Junior Championships – Fs Jimmy Snuggerud, Oliver Moore & Ds Ryan Chesley & Sam Rinzel
Speaking of the…
Minnesota Gophers
Overall Record:
9-5-4 (W-L-T)
Big Ten Record:
5-4-3-1-0 (W-L-T-OW-OL), 17 points, 3rd place in the Big Ten
The Minnesota Gophers need to start playing better and with more consistency after the holiday break. It’s easy to say this and we always forget these players are so young and it takes a while to adjust to Division I College Hockey.
They beat the USNTDP (US National Team Development Program) U18 team today by a score of 3-2.
They start the stretch run on January 7th & 8th for a rare Sunday & Monday home series vs the Colorado College Tigers. Both games will air on FOX9+ & Big Ten+ with Sunday’s game at 5 pm & Monday’s game at 7 pm.
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