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ST. LOUIS…. I got to take in the Minnesota Wild-St. Louis Blues final pre-season tilt last Friday eve. I was in my usual preferred seating spot, directly behind the opposing net minder, and about 8 rows up so I had a good view over the net. That way I can see my team on offense for 2 periods and I prefer an end of the rink view to the side view. I like to see breakouts and plays develop from that vantage point.

In this particular game, after besting the Blues 3-1 Wednesday eve in St. Paul the Wild dropped a 4-1 decision to the Note. The 1st period was a bit of a standoff although the Wild got a marker from Jared Spurgeon. In the 2nd the Blues started to turn up the offensive pressure and dominated in zone time and killed of a double minor penalty. From that point forward the Blues had the advantage in play. Josh Harding, who stopped 15 shots over 2 periods yielded to Johan Gustafsson in the 3rd, apparently due to illness and the Blues scored 51 seconds apart to take the lead before heading on to a 4-1 final. The club completed the pre-season schedule with a 4-2 record.

As of Sunday afternoon the team has completed their final roster positioning and the club is actually in Duluth this evening for a couple of days of “bonding” and will be skating at the Amsoil arena for a couple of practices before opening night Thursday versus the Los Angeles Kings. The team had to make roster moves on 2 more players electing to reassign Jason Zucker and Jake Dowell to the Iowa Wild. So, at this point the depth chart looks like this for the team; (position-name-age)

LW-Parise-29, C-Koivu-30,
RW-Pominville-30
LW-Heatley-32, C-Coyle-21,
RW-Fontaine-25
LW-Cooke-35, C-Brodziak-29,
RW-Mitchell-28
LW-Granlund-21, C-Konopka-32,
 RW-Neiderreiter-21
D-Suter-28, D-Brodin-20
D-Scandella-23, D-Spurgeon-23
D-Ballard-30, D-Dumba-19
D-Stoner-28, D-Prosser-27
G-Backstrom-35, G-Harding-29
IR, Forward, Rupp-35

With this roster and the youth represented on it, I would look for Zucker, Dowell and possibly Brett Bulmer to be rotated between the big club and Iowa on a somewhat frequent basis based upon needs and situations. A handful of other candidates for movement could be Stephane Veillux’, Chad Rau, Zack Phillips and Carson McMillan. The top D-man candidate for movement in my book would be Tyler Cuma. I believe he may have been close to grabbing the 8th D spot at camp but didn’t quite get there.


In assessing the club for the upcoming season I tend to look at many factors, with some of them perhaps not what would be the traditional route but how I think they would compare based upon other top tier teams. I assess each line as constructed and consider how they compare to other top lines in the 1, 2, 3 or 4 position. I do the same with ‘D’ pairings as in 1, 2, 3, or 4 pair and 1st goaltender and 2nd.  How does the Wild’s 1-6 forwards compare? 7-12? How does the Wilds 1-10 “Core Group” match up? (6 forwards, 3 defense, 1 goalie) And finally I looked at players ranking, and HFI or hockey fantasy Index.

I’m not a fantasy player, not interested and don’t have the time, but I find them interesting none the less. The thing with Fantasy leagues is that I think there is the real everyday NHL and then how a player is viewed as a fantasy league player and I believe they are just 2 different worlds. There may be some players who hold down a nice fantasy rank but aren’t as favorably looked upon in the real competition and vice versa. For instance Zach Parise is the 9th ranked Left Wing in one ranking service I looked at and 43rd in the overall best player rank. In my non-fantasy rank I would place him in the top 5 left wingers and in the top 30 players. I think he brings that kind of sand to a club.

But then the Wild only had 4 players in the top 200 rank and their positional rank didn’t fare so well either. But then there is fantasy and reality. I would rank the Parise-Koivu-Poms line in the top 12 in the league. There is a ton of experience and two-way ability there. Their fantasy rank would disagree with that. In looking at the clubs age and experience factor I see 8 players between the age of 18-25, 12 players between 26-30 and 4 players over 30. I have always looked for a roster with an age mix of which the bulk would be between 28-38. It is a blend of guys who are at their physical strength peaks and league experience peaks. In that sense the Wild have 11 players with less then 5 years of NHL experience, 10 players with 6-10 years in and 3 guys with more then 10 years.

It is the less then 5 seasons part that leads me to believe that the Wild are not in their Stanley Cup window yet. But if you were to analyze the Blackhawk roster for instance, it defies my thoughts on age and experience as big factors in Cup victories. I guess extraordinary talent can do that for you. And that could be the Achilles heel for this club.
The Wild have never been a bad enough team to enable them to get into a draft position whereby they could grab a Sid Crosby, Pat Kane or John Tavares. Even with Parise and Ryan Suter (13th ranked D-man, 83rd ranked player overall) who I consider to be the clubs top 2 players, the rest of the hockey world doesn’t consider them to be in the top tier elite player level.

The club did get Dumba, Brodin and Granlund in the top ten overall, but all are on the front end of their pro careers with a lot to learn. Brodin seems to be defying his lack of experience while the jury is out on Granlund and Dumba. What I saw of Dumba on Friday eve vs. the Blues was impressive though. This kid is going to be real good… someday. I believe that you could place forwards Coyle, Neiderreiter, Zucker, and former Bulldog Justin Fontaine in that boat too. They need to get their experience level up and when they do….

NEXT WEEK; Part Three, a final wrap on the Wild outlook for the upcoming season and some NHL predictions…. PEACE