The Minnesota Wild and Their Offseason Goals

Are the Minnesota Wild ready to compete for a Northwest division title? Matt Ellenberger tells you in his discussion of what the Wild has done so far in the offseason.

by Matt Ellenberger (Scribe)

2

165 reads

Editorial

July 08, 2008

NHL, Minnesota Wild, Editorial

 

The Wild have a list of priorities on their "Hockey Ops" blog and have supposedly addressed all of their needs. Lets take a look, shall we?

Hockey Ops Priority—Assemble one of the top defensive corps in the Western Conference. The last two Conference champions had great defensive units that were very strong offensively and defensively.

  • Retained pending free agent Nick Schultz.
  • Added an accomplished top four defenseman in Marek Zidlicky.

Me—Not exactly. Schultz is a solid defenseman, and so is Zidlicky, but we've still got Johnsson and Hill, who are serviceable, but not top in the Western Conference by any stretch of the imagination. We also signed Marc-Andre Bergeron, which is a plus. We're getting better, but not quite there yet.

Hockey Ops Priority—Increase offense and puck possession without sacrificing the solid defensive identity of our team.

  • Changed from older, defensive veterans on defense to more mobile, puck-moving players in Zidlicky and Marc-Andre Bergeron.
  • Brought back Andrew Brunette to help offensive zone puck possession and create more goals.
  • Added Antti Miettinen to show more offense from the team’s two-way players.

Me—OK, mission accomplished I guess. I hate that we have a “defensive identity” though; why can't we have an “offensive identity?” Sure Bruno's going to create goals, but who's going to score 'em?

Hockey Ops- Priority—Focus on retaining and growing the young core of players on our team who will continue to get better and take us to the next level.

  • Did not trade young players on the team such as Mikko Koivu, Brent Burns, and James Sheppard at the trade deadline or the Draft.
  • Retained young prospects Colton Gillies and Benoit Pouliot at the same time and moved up in the draft to ensure the obtaining of Tyler Cuma.

Me—Nor did we trade players like Marian Gaborik or Niklas Backstrom. I think management gets the big “so what?” on this one. And oh look, another defensive defenseman!  

I think management forgot that you have to score goals to win hockey games.

 

Editorial

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comments (2) write a comment »

  1. reply to comment by Alan
    2 months ago

    I like this list. great job, matt

  2. reply to comment by Matt
    2 months ago

    I stole the list itself from the Minnesota wild Hockey Ops blog. Looking back, I should have linked to it somewhere in the article, but I'm just getting the hang of this. I just provided commentary on what we did do- or in this case what we didn't. Thanks a lot though

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