It was a Wild Wednesday on the 2nd Day of the 2020 NHL Draft

Posted on October 8, 2020 by

So…It was a Wild Wednesday on Draft Day #2!
The Wild began the day by trading F Luke Kunin & a 4th-round pick (101) to Nashville for C Nick Bonino & a 2nd-rounder (37) & a 3rd-rounder (70).
—Sad to see Kunin go as he looks like he’ll be a solid to very good NHL player for a long time. He’s a goal-scorer who plays a gritty game, likes to shoot the puck and he’s a leader on & off the ice but…you need to give something up to get something.
—Bonino is a center who won 2 Stanley Cups with Bill Guerin when they were both with Pittsburgh so Bill knows him well and knows what he’ll bring to this team. The picks are possibly the bigger part of this deal, though. They gave the Wild a chance to take some better prospects to add to their system and that will only help them in the future.
On to the picks, their 1st pick couldn’t have worked out any better as a projected future #1 center fell to them and it was the guy they wanted from the get go at #9 in Ontario Hockey League & Ottawa 67’s F Marco Rossi. That was yesterday.
Today, they grabbed another center with the 37th pick in Russian C Marat Khusnutdinov (Kuz-na-dee-noff), a player with speed, “hands and playmaking ability that can’t be taught.” He’s playing for SKA St. Petersburg in the Kontinental Hockey League this season or, at least, he has. He’s listed as playing 2 games with no points so far but he has 2 goals & 5 assists in 8 games with their minor-league club after scoring 13 goals & 25 assists last season with them. He has this year & next year remaining on his KHL contract but is eager to come over & play in MN. He’s still only 18-year’s-old.
The Wild used their own 2nd-round pick to select D Ryan O’Rourke, captain of the Sault Ste Marie Greyhounds, a 2-way defenseman that plays a tough & gritty game.
The Wild then traded the 70th pick to move up to 65 so they could select another nice 2-way defenseman in D Daemon Hunt from the Moose Jaw Warriors Hockey Club of the Western Hockey League. He had a rough 2019-20 season due to getting his arm cut with a skate and missing almost 3 months because of it. He needed 25 stitches just to stop the bleeding then had surgery a week later to repair the muscle. The best story we heard about Hunt, and this might tell you what kind of competitor he is, was when his team lost and it was the opponent’s goalie’s 1st win so when a couple of the other team’s players came to get the puck, he threw it into the stands. Haha! Beauty!
The Minnesota Wild were not supposed to pick until the 6th round at pick 163 then again in the 7th at pick 194 but they packaged those 2 picks to move up to 146 to select RW Pavel Novak, a 1st-year rookie with the Kelowna Rockets of the WHL who scored 25 goals & 58 points in 55 games last season, which is similar production to Wild prospect Adam Beckman when he was a rookie. They expect a similar jump in production from Novak this season.
That seems like a heckuva draft and a heckuva day for the Minnesota Wild but only time will tell how good it turns out to be and if the trade for Bonino has the kind of effect Guerin is looking for on the Wild’s culture. Any player who has won a Cup has to have an instant on the team.
After the draft, Bill Guerin said the only spot they have to really worry about in free agency is in goal so…who will they pursue when Friday’s #FreeAgentFrenzy begins? A lot of people are thinking Marc-Andre Fleury who you would assume won’t be able to stay in Vegas after they signed G Robin Lehner to a brand new 5-year/$25M contract a few days ago.
We’ll let you know all of #TheClutter as it happens, ya ‘Puckers! Let us know what you thought about the Wild’s draft, though!
 
Quotes & player scouting reports taken from this Wild article:
https://www.nhl.com/wild/news/2020-draft-day-two-recap-100720/c-319370998
 
AND…here’s a nice Video Playlist from #WildTV on the weekend, the draft, trades and the offseason. https://www.nhl.com/wild/video/t-277437412
THANK YOU for reading…and…don’t forget…
Bring The Clutter Every Day in Every Way
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2020 Stanley Cup Finals Game 3 Recap – Stamkos Returns for Tampa Bay

Posted on September 24, 2020 by

Watching the highlights from Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Tampa Bay Lightning & the Dallas Stars made me wonder how tired these guys are because pretty much every goal included some bad defense to allow the goal-scorer to get open or, in the case of Tampa’s 4th goal, a terrible & lazy change from 2 Dallas Stars to allow a 3-on-1.

Those are mental mistakes so were they just not ready for tonight’s game?
The 1st goal was a terrible turnover as Dallas D Miro Heiskanen falls down near the bench and for some reason thinks it’s a good idea to try to make a blind pass through the middle while he’s falling down instead of just eating it or sending it up the boards. The pass was intercepted by Nikita Kucherow to put the Lightning up 1-0 just 5:33 into a very important Game 3.
The next goal was a great shot from Stamkos going upper left from a tough angle but to get open, Dallas D Esa Lindell tried to throw a hip check and misses but I think he should see that cross-ice pass coming to one of the best players in the NHL and break it up. Maybe he’s worried about Stamkos getting behind him but that would be a tough play to make with Stamkos trying to stay onside.
On Dallas’ 1st goal to make it a 1-goal game with 8+ minutes remaining, Tampa Bay has all 5 players in the corner and they’re all watching the puck. A puck battle is lost in the corner and the #PuckWatchers got to Watch the Puck go into their own net instead of trying to defend a player. It’s a great spot to watch Jason Dickinson shoot a puck into the net. If you want to watch, buy a ticket!
Under a minute into the 2nd, there are 6 players behind the net & beneath the goal line battling for a loose puck. Dallas F Joe Pavelski wanted to go back there and make it 4-on-3 but he thought better of it but, he didn’t cover anyone, either, so when the puck comes loose & TB F Anthony Cirelli gets to it first, it’s an easy pass to a wide-open Victor Hedman for a shot and a 3-1 lead. Oh yeah AND…Dallas was on the PK so they only had 4 players on the ice.
The 5th goal is the bad change and it looks like it’s Joe Pavelski & Joel Kiviranta but, hey, at least they avoided that minus-1, right?
Tampa Bay goes up 5-1 and it looks like the problem with Dallas was they were reacting to the play instead of reading the play & reacting to their reads.
Heiskanen scored in the 3rd to make it 5-2 but at that point, it didn’t appear to matter.
Game 4 is Friday at 7pm on NBC and Dallas better play better in that one or all this time in the bubble will be for nothing but that Western Conference Clarence S. Campbell Bowl that nobody cares about. Each player can get that trophy for a day and see if anyone cares to see that in person. Does anyone even take care of those Conference Champion Trophies?
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Minnesota Wild Trade F Eric Staal to Buffalo for F Marcus Johannson

Posted on September 16, 2020 by

 

Minnesota Wild Trade F Eric Staal to Buffalo for F Marcus Johannson September 16th, 2O2O

Bill Guerin continues to try to change the Minnesota Wild. For the 2nd time already this offseason, Minnesota Wild GM Bill Guerin has made a trade. This time he traded C Eric Staal to the #Sabres for F/C Marcus Johannson.

Guerin on Staal:
“Eric Staal was a positive influence on guys, but sometimes it’s just change is good for us,” Wild general manager Bill Guerin said. “This is part of it. We need to mix things up. We need to find a different pathway to success and that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to build a better team and sometimes you have to take some drastic measures.

“We’re getting a little bit younger. It’s a different look for our team. Marcus provides a lot of speed, a lot of skill, and we’re looking forward to adding him to our lineup.”

Guerin on Johannson:
“I think opportunity,” Guerin said about why Johansson might succeed as a center in Minnesota. “They’ve got a pretty good No. 1 centerman there (in Buffalo) and sometimes it’s not a great fit, but I think Marcus fits well with us and he’s going to get a lot of opportunity. Dean (Evason) knows him very well from Washington (as a former assistant) and believes he can an impactful centerman, so he’s going to get that opportunity.”

I like the move more for what it says about changing this team than maybe the player the Minnesota Wild acquired although, kind of like Zuccarello, with the right linemates, Johannson has the skill to make plays. Does he center Fiala & Kaprizov on the top line? Does he join Zuccarello on a line?

Who centers the top line? TBD as there will likely be more moves.

Here’s what Guerin said about the culture of the Wild and likely why he wants to make changes:
“I’ve got to figure out what’s the issue. Why have we been falling short? There’s something rooted here that’s not working. … It’s something in the culture, and we need to change it.”

Staal was a good guy to have in the locker room and he loved it here but the GM can’t worry about hurting a player’s feelings or he’d never make a move. It’s a business and the Wild need to fix the team. Bill Guerin knows how to win on & off the ice!

Who will be next? Donato? Greenway? Kunin? Parise?

I’m only for trading Parise if you get something of value back. I realize that’s difficult to do with his contract but keep something useful back, not just another shorter bad contract. Parise still scores goals.

Guerin is definitely trying to put his mark on the team. Culture is the hardest thing to change but the biggest piece to build a winner in my opinion. I thought the 2019-20 Wild started to show that Play-For-Each-Other vibe, especially after the coaching change.

That’s another thing that will be interesting to see. How does Evason change how this team plays? System changes? Power Play? The lines? The defensive pairings? In goal?

All of this is still to be determined in an offseason that has already brought a lot of change to this team. It will be exciting and interesting to see how the Minnesota Wild look at the end of it.

Thanks for reading this Clutter!!! Have a Great Day! GO WILD and…
Bring The Clutter Every Day in Every Way

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The Future Starts Now for the Minnesota Wild

Posted on August 13, 2020 by
The 5th & Final (?) Episode of the Minnesota Wild’s YouTube series Beyond Our Ice came out earlier today.
 
This one is called “The Future Starts Now” and it covers Game 4 & the very quick end to the Minnesota Wild‘s season in Overtime and then moves to The Arrival of Kirill Kaprizov to Minnesota on Tuesday and then moves on to the questions surrounding the offseason & the 2020-21 NHL Season…
 
—When will the season start?
It’s tentatively scheduled to begin on December 1st. An NHL season usually goes about 6 1/2 months so next season would likely end sometime in the middle of June meaning the Stanley Cup would probably be awarded sometime in August unless the league is planning on trying to somehow compact 82 games into a shorter span of time. Would they then start the 2021-22 season on time in October or maybe gradually get back to October by starting in November then get back to starting in October in the 2022-23 season.
 
—Have we seen Mikko Koivu’s last game in the NHL? or with the Wild?
He’s going to take some time to think about it and talk to his brother who’s gone through it already to figure out what he wants to do. He’s not under contract so he would have to be signed. If they did that, would he still be Captain?
 
Obviously, it seems unlikely that Mikko would come back because he was their 4th line center to end the season. We wonder if he’d be someone that would join the organization in some other capacity.
 
—If Mikko retires? Who takes over the Captaincy?
There are some obvious options in Zach Parise, Ryan Suter, Jared Spurgeon and Luke Kunin. A note on Spurgeon & Kunin from the video below, they contacted Kirill Kaprizov to start to get acquainted with him and so he could get acquainted with them, too. That’s pretty awesome leadership right there.
 
—Who’s #1 in goal next season?
Devan Dubnyk has 1 year left on his contract. Alex Stalock had a very good season & started all 4 games in the playoffs. Then, you also have Iowa Wild G Kaapo Kahkonen, the American Hockey League‘s Outstanding Goaltender for the 2019-20 season who looks ready to make the jump to being in the NHL at least as a backup if not the #1 goaltender.
 
—How does the Minnesota Wild get better?
That’s been General Manager Bill Guerin’s quote since the season ended. They have to get better. How do they do that?
 
They have the Draft coming up and prospects from the last couple drafts have looked good but they probably aren’t ready and you for sure can’t count on them to be ready. Kaprizov should be a nice piece but even that’s not a guarantee.
 
Do they trade a goalie? Do they trade somebody like F Ryan Donato? Do they trade a defenseman to get a nice top 6 forward from another team?
So many questions but that’s what always makes the offseason fun and I believe Bill Guerin is meant for this job. He knows how teams win so he knows what they need. He just has to go get it and that’s the hardest thing to do. Teams don’t want to give up what the Wild need but this is has been such a strange season, who knows how strange the offseason will be.
 
Stay tuned to #TheClutter so you know what’s happening.
 
We’ve been posting something every day for almost a full year now and we’re not going to stop anytime soon!
 
THANKS to all the #ClutterPuckers for following us, like-ing our content and commenting on it, too…or Thank for #Cluttering up our stats! Haha!
 
Let us know what you think!
Bring The Clutter Every Day in Every Way
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Minnesota Wild Recap at the Edmonton Oilers – February 21st, 2020

Posted on February 21, 2020 by


Can the Minnesota Wild start a winning streak in Edmonton? To Carson Soucy & Jared Spurgeon (natives of Alberta, Canada)…ARE YOU TOO GOOD FOR YOUR HOME?

Two Minnesota Wild players were going home to Alberta to play tonight’s game, D Carson Soucy & D Jared Spurgeon, and they had HUGE games proving they might be TOO GOOD FOR THEIR HOME!

The Minnesota Wild came back from 3 1-goal deficits before a huge 3rd period.

The Edmonton Oilers top line was wreaking havoc on the Wild in the first 2 periods. F Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored 50 seconds into the game off an Oilers rush. Wild D Jonas Brodin actually appeared to take the puck but it was taken right back and passed to an open Nugent-Hopkins who beat Stalock by shooting through Matt Dumba.

Kevin Fiala made a nice play in front of the net to move the puck from his forehand to his backhand to get a wide-open net for his 16th goal of the season to tie the game at 1.

Nugent-Hopkins scored again when he was found wide-open driving to the net and it looked like the backchecker lost track of his man and/or was late getting back.

D Carson Soucy was found driving up the left side of the zone by Mats Zuccarello for an open shot that he wristed in for his 7th goal of the season. Unfortunately, he left the game with an upper-body injury. Luke Kunin did as well so the Wild had to battle through being short 2 players.

Leon Draisaitl scored on a pass from the goal line when the puck went off of Jordan Greenway’s skate and deflected back and into the net. It was a wicked deflection as Greenway was near the faceoff dot and skating towards the half-wall so it deflected like 10-15 feet backward but, bounces are part of the game, good & bad.

The Wild didn’t let that stop them as they tied it up again just 2:54 later on Jared Spurgeon’s slapper from the right dot that went far side past Oilers G Mikko Koskinen.

That’s Wild Alberta natives 2, the team from Alberta 3 if you’re keeping track.

So, a HUGE 3rd period began with the game knotted at 3 goals each. The Wild got an early power play and got some great scoring chances but couldn’t capitalize on them but they were playing a solid game and adjusting to the Oilers top line & that Draisaitl (#29 – 97 points (35 G, 62 A)) guy, blocking a lot of shots and getting good goaltending from G Alex Stalock.

They were also shooting the puck. Something Coach Dean Evason asked them to do. They finished with 39 shots on goal and a great example of getting pucks to the net was the Wild’s 4th goal and Jared Spurgeon’s 2nd of the game. Ryan Suter brought the puck in on the right side and quickly passed it off to Zach Parise then continued into the zone to give Zach a passing option. Zach had to curl back towards the boards to protect the puck and then backhanded it into the corner to Suter. Jared took advantage of the space on the left side of the zone and Suter found him but passed it in front of him forcing Spurgeon to go to his backhand and he just threw the puck at the net and it went off of Oilers D Adam Larsson’s stick and into the net for a 4-3 Wild lead! See….Get Pucks to the Net, boys!!!

The Wild got another power play with 8:20 left and had some chances to double their lead but didn’t so the Oilers had 6+ minutes to tie the game then Spurgeon put his stick into the skates of Oilers F Caleb Jones and ended up tripping him with 3:49 left in regulation.

The Wild’s Penalty Kill has been much improved in the last handful of games because they are doing the things they need to do to kill said penalties. Most of that is blocking shots but it’s also working together and communicating. As the power play wound down, the puck was passed back to the point but Spurgeon came out of the box fast to break up the play and the loose puck went to Eric Staal who fed Spurgeon for the easy empty-net goal for his 1st Career Hat Trick and only the Wild’s 2nd Hat Trick from a Defenseman.

So…for the record! That’s Wild Alberta natives 4, Team from Alberta 3! Soucy 1 & Spurgeon doing a trick with a hat! It was a treat seeing that trick!

What a huge win! This team doesn’t give up and the 3 days off has served them well as the Coach has stressed accountability and communication.

Next up: St. Louis Blues at the X on Sunday at 6:30pm on the NHL on NBC Sports.

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