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Moving On Too Soon

April 27, 2017, 10:22 AM ET [7 Comments]
Dan Wallace
Minnesota Wild Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Wild GM Chuck Fletcher addressed the media following his team's latest playoff failure. His comments were yes, changes will be coming but not of the dramatic nature.

Let's be realistic, we live in the horrendous era of sports salary caps, which yes protect the investments of ownership, at the peril of fan loyalty. The days of players being drafted and groomed in the system to potentially spend the majority of their career in one city are long gone.

We as fans are left to, as Jerry Seinfeld so poignantly stated, rooting for the laundry.

Martin Hanzal and Ryan White most likely will not return and quite honestly that is no big deal in the big picture for the Minnesota Wild. They were brought in to be final pieces to a puzzle that was supposed to deliver the Wild a deep playoff run.

Of course we all know that didn't happen and that deal will go down as one of the worst deals in Chuck Fletcher's tenure as Wild GM. The record after the deal was dreadful and the 5 game early playoff exit just put the cherry on top.

The big issues moving forward are to get RFAs Mikael Granlund and Nino Niederreiter resigned, and address the expansion draft protection list issue.

The NHL is a speed league, it is not a fantasy game played on paper. I feel that both Chuck Fletcher and coach Bruce Boudreau, are guilty of trying too hard to put the pieces together when the team was playing very well. Interchangeable parts are good, but not at the expense of changing the base of the game plan.

It was noticeable that the Wild's game became very passive and boring with the insertion of Hanzal into the lineup. This was never more evident than in the last game played against the Blackhawks in Chicago. If you recall Hanzal missed that game due to illness, yet the Wild thoroughly outplayed the Hawks up and down the ice. Yes, they did lose 4-2, but that was largely due to the spectacular effort of Corey Crawford. Chicago had no answer for the Wild's speed in that game, something that once Hanzal returned to the lineup, we never witnessed again.

The great teams dictate the flow of the game and use their skill to take advantage of their opponent. Yes, they scout and understand their opponent, but they don't rearrange their game to fit the opponent. Leaders lead and everyone else follows.

To me the Wild were on the path to lead, then scrapped the plan and turned into followers.

Sports are all copycat. The leader establishes the level and everyone else attempts to raise their game to compete, until a new leader takes the game in a new direction. That is the way it works, but I can assure you that teams that try to chase this method will absolutely fail.

Chuck Fletcher if your seat wasn't hot already, the fire has been turned up. Stop trying to buy, start working harder to be the best.
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