With the pre-season firmly behind the Minnesota Wild and having gone 4-2 through this process, it's all over except for the final cuts. As such, I thought it would be interesting to take a stroll through my pre-season blogs to see what I and others in the "official" media said and see how close or far away we were.
To begin with, here's what Wild beat writer Michael Russo was thinking before the pre-season:
Michael Russo recently re-blogged his thoughts on the starting line-up for this season’s Minnesota Wild:
Parise-Koivu-Pominville
Zucker-Coyle-Heatley
Cooke-Brodziak-Niederreiter
Rupp-Konopka-Mitchell
Extra: Dowell
Suter-Brodin
Scandella-Ballard
Stoner-Spurgeon
Extra: Prosser
Backstrom
Harding
Not knowing what the young guns would bring to the table, I thought that this was a very fair pre-camp assessment.
I, on the other hand, guess I gave the prospects a little more of a chance.
Michael Russo commented that during this season’s training camp, he will be paying close attention to Coyle, Matt Dumba, Granlund, Niederreiter and Zucker. I, on the other hand, look at most of those guys as locks to make the team.
Then again, I also stated the following which is inconsistent with the above statement:
So, who wins out at each position and why? Who knows, but here’s my shot at it:
I have Coyle at second line center and Zucker and Heatley as his wingers to start this season;
I have Konopka centering the fourth line with Rupp and Dowell as his wings, provided Rupp is cleared to play by opening night;
I see Spurgeon playing alongside Ballard with Stoner and Scandella as the third defensive pairing;
Granlund and Nederreiter will be the extra forwards and Prosser and Dumba are the extra defensemen until they have to send Dumba back so they don’t risk burning a year of his contract.
You can't really have both......or can you?
Then the pre-season games began. This was what I wrote after the first pre-season game:
In the bubble group, Zucker was underwhelming and eventually injured in the 2nd period; Dowell had a pretty decent fight with Cody Bass that went longer than average; Niederreiter impressed me with his size and drive to the net which resulted in the Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Wild goal; Steckel won 75% of his face-offs (6 of 8) so he lived up to his billing as a face-off specialist; Prosser I thought was solid and was neither plus nor minus on the night; Dumba, while having the most shots (4) was still underwhelming for me given all the hype surrounding him and was minus-1 on the night; Granlund skated well, through some weight around in the hitting department and was instrumental on the lone Wild goal as the guy behind the net feeding it out front to Coyle for a shot and Nino’s rebound, backhand shelf goal, not to mention winning 50% of his face-offs (9 of 18).
I also felt this way after the first pre-season game:
All in all, Granlund made a big stride forward which I hope continues so Coyle can go back to being a power forward winger. Hopefully, his progress continues and everyone just keeps getting better.
Obviously, Coyle will not be returning to a power forward wing position any time soon. At least I think he won't given his tremendous pre-season.
Then the thoughts about changing the overall personell of the fourth line started coming up.
All said, I think Russo put it best in this morning’s paper. The young guys are definitely not making the decision making process easy for the Wild brass. Yet, ultimately, Russo is right that if the Wild are unable to move some veteran contracts prior to the beginning of the season (my take, not his), then the vets will likely get the first shot with the Wild given the fact that so many of the young guys pushing for roster spots are still on entry level contracts which thus does not make them subject to waivers during call ups (his take, not mine). The lone exception is Justin Fontaine whom the Wild brass seem to be pushing to make the big club, most likely as an extra forward (credit to Russo for this tidbit as well).
The pre-season ended with me stating the following:
If this were a democracy (which it is not), my vote would be to send Dowell and Konopka through waivers to the AHL at the point in time when all teams are making their final roster moves. With so much movement through the waiver wire, I would think these guys would be safer. If they get taken, then so be it. At least you don’t have multi-million dollar contracts in the AHL. It is my understanding that the new CBA got rid of the coming back into the NHL part of the waiver wire and that some combination of number of games played and number of days back up with the big club plays a consideration with whether the player, if sent back down again, would be re-subjected to going through waivers. However, with the AHL Wild now in Des Moines, the NHL Wild has many more options, depending on their needs and the opponent they are playing for any given evening, that we could start seeing a well worn path on Interstate 35 from Des Moines to St. Paul for certain Wild players this season. (Side note: It is also my understanding that any contract in the AHL over $900,000 does count against the salary cap, so there is that consideration also).
This was prior to the Wild waiving Dowell and Steckel. In today's blog, Michael Russo has Fletcher on record talking about shuttling guys back and forth depending on the Wild's opponents any given night and the team's needs. To me, that is something to be optimistic about. Not only can we use our young speed-skill guys in certain games, but we can also muscle up where and when we need to when playing more physical teams. As such, I think we see a Rupp-Konopka-Dowell 4th line vs L.A. and, perhaps, a Zucker-Granlund-Nino 3rd or 4th line in the next game versus the Ducks. This call-up/send-down philosophy will work well for home games, but not so much for road games. Also, God bless the Iowa Wild coach. He'll be constantly re-tooling his line up based on what the Minnesota Wild do.
Lastly, Charlie Coyle was clearly the star of this pre-season for the Wild. So much so, I wrote the following thought:
Lastly, perhaps Charlie Coyle has not only made the case to be the Wild’s second line center. Perhaps he deserves the chance to play center on the top line and allow Koivu to center a line with countryman Granlund on his wing.
So, how's that for a trip down (recent) memory lane. Where were we right? Where were we wrong? More importantly, how do you think the Wild will fare this season? One concern I have is the health of our two top goalies. Backstrom is already sore. Harding clearly not feeling well (M.S.-related?). Is Kuemper good enough to step in and take the reins if needed? Much remains to be seen. How do you see it?
Minnesota Wild Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»