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Fenton's First Wild Camp Opens Today

September 14, 2018, 11:31 AM ET [2 Comments]
Dan Wallace
Minnesota Wild Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The 2018-19 Minnesota Wild begin their quest today as Training Camp opens in St. Paul. This season the team will for the very first time ever have their own state of the art training facility.

TRIA Rink at Treasure island Center is the new practice and training center of the Wild. Yes, the team was able to practice in the facility last season during the second half of the campaign, but were unable to access the locker room and training space, located on the bottom floor of Treasure Island Center, due to numerous construction delays.

So a good team, not a great team as owner, Craig Leipold, called them when he dismissed Chuck Fletcher, following another first round playoff exit, begins the long journey to change that notion.

The personnel moves made in the offseason were more subtle changes to the complexion of the team as they head into camp. New GM, Paul Fenton is in charge now and he will be assessing the talent first hand in order to make the more significant changes to the roster that are necessary to make the Wild a better team when the games matter most.

Competition breeds excellence, and this years' Wild camp features 61 players vying to show the new boss what they can do. There is no allegiance to the current roster from the top of the organization. Everyone will be assessed at their current value to the club, and not based on how they were acquired originally.

The status quo must change in order for the Wild to take the significant steps forward.

I have said it here before that the Wild are the most vanilla team in the NHL. They are a good team for sure, qualifying for the playoffs six straight seasons playing in arguably the toughest division in the league. Just two series wins over that stretch tell the true tale of the team that no one really considers a legitimate contender, though.

Training camp should be a bit more interesting than in years past, despite the fact that only a handful of roster spots are really open to competition. The fact is, Fenton is going to make some significant personnel decisions to retool this team. That is a fact and the players that think that it will be the same old same old, will be in for a rude awakening.

Tomorrow the Wild will hold and open practice at the Xcel Energy Center from 9 to 11AM and continue the "flood the rink" tradition that they began last season. The tradition allows fans to bring water from their favorite lakes, ponds, and rinks from across the State of Hockey to be filtered and added to the Xcel Energy Center ice.

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