The Top 13 Stories of '13

Photo: Bruce Kluckhohn/NHLI via Getty Images

Since we are winding down 2013 today, it makes sense to take a look back at the best stories from 2013. So to commemorate the year 2013, we will take a look back at the 13 best stories for the Wild.

A New Face In The State Of Hockey: Nino Niederreiter

Nino Niederreiter

Right Wing

6'2"

208 lbs

Shoots: Left

Born: September 8, 1992

Birthplace: Chur, Switzerland
Acquired: Via trade from the New York Islanders on June 30

As if Chuck Fletcher wasn't already investing a lot in young kids to lead this team for the next decade, he decided to add another to the fold. On draft day, Fletcher sent the popular Cal Clutterbuck and the 70th overall pick to the Islanders for Nino Niederreiter.

Nino was the Islanders 5th overall pick in the 2010 NHL draft (we later discovered that Fletcher coveted Nino very much and would of taken him with the 9th overall pick). They drafted a kid who they were hoping to form a great 1-2 punch with John Tavares. Nino was a force offensively, and the Islanders signed him following the Portland Winterhawks (WHL) season. He played the final nine games with the Islanders.

The next year, the Islanders kept him on the roster but due to lack of performance was pushed down to the fourth line where he played a majority of the season. Yeah, the Islanders valued him so much they kept him on the team to play fourth line minutes.

Nino had requested a trade from the Islanders to begin the 2012-13 season, because of the way he had been handled. The Islanders thought it best to keep him at Bridgeport (AHL) for the whole season, something they should have done in the first place.

Bottomline here is that Nino still has the great offensive talents from when he was drafted. He can still score goals, he still has great hands, and he can make something happen out of nothing. It just didn't show up right away for the Islanders. Rushing him to the NHL did not help his cause either. Now he has a new start and will have a chance to compete for a spot on the NHL roster. And should he not make it, he will get top line minutes in Iowa and will be a call up should the Wild suffer injuries.

The kid needs a second chance. He will get a good one here in Minnesota. Lets hope this trade pays off.

Welcome to the Team of 18,001 Nino Niederreiter!


Follow Giles on Twitter @gilesferrell

Wild Sign Matt Cooke

Cooke won the 2009 Stanley Cup with Pittsburgh

Just minutes after the Wild traded Devin Setoguchi to the Jets, the team announced they signed free agent F Matt Cooke to a three year deal worth $7.5 million. His cap hit will be at $2.5M for each of those seasons.

Cooke is an awfully troubling signing. He has had several suspensions in the past for his foul play (the worst was his hit on Bruins F Marc Savard). He seems to have cleaned that aspect of that up, but his hit on Erik Karlsson this past year stirred that debate up again. So on this front, the Wild are taking a huge gamble with all of that baggage.

Besides the dirty play, Cooke has a very decent skill set. He is coming from a high powered Pittsburgh team, so that might skew his offensive stats. But he has been averaging around 15 goals with the Pens, and had eight this past year, which was a strike shortened season. He is very good on the PK, and can hold his own in the defensive zone.

He will probably slot on the third line as Cal Clutterbuck's replacement this fall. But my question is, if the Wild were going to deal Seto, why not keep Clutter who would be a much cheaper option than Cooke? They both are pretty similar in style of play.

There will be more from this move later on, but right now I can't even grasp where I stand with this signing. Lets all just give this a few days and let it sink in and see where we stand with this.

Farewell Cal Clutterbuck

Thanks for the Memories, Cal

On Sunday, the Wild acquired F Nino Neiderreiter from the New York Islanders in exchange for the Wild's 70th overall pick and RW Cal Clutterbuck.

Clutterbuck was drafted by the Wild in the 3rd round (72nd overall) of the 2006 NHL Entry Draft. Since his arrival with the team during the 2008-09 season, he has been a fan favorite. His physical play was a huge hit with the fans and his teammates. He often got into the opposition's head with his play, and that created some rather interesting moments.

His best season was in 2010-11 when he registered a career high 19 goals and 15 assists, and tallied a NHL leading 334 hits (his career high for hits in a season was 356 in 2008-09).

Cal did not have a great season in 2013 (only four goals and six assists in 42 games, but that can be blamed for spending his most of his shifts in the defensive zone), but he still carried a lot of value. That's why he was moved Sunday for one of the Islanders top prospects.

Clutter was a great asset to this team. But the decreasing cap space and his RFA status made it clear that he was going to be moved this offseason. He will be missed here, but this move will benefit the team greatly in the long run.

Thanks for the memories Cal!

2013 NHL Draft: Fasten Your Seat Belts

Photo tweeted by @DarrenDreger

In the days leading up to the draft, you were expecting a bunch of trades to be made. Several teams have tight cap space and still have several spots on the roster to fill. The wheeling and dealing should of been at a ridiculous pace by now, right? Wrong.

Since the end of the Stanley Cup Final on Monday, the most prolific trade was a laughable one between the Avalanche and Flames. Rumors have been flying around like no other this week, but none of them have come to fruition. One has to think that at some point, those deals will finally get done.

Going into this draft, the Wild appear to be one of the teams looking to heavily wheel and deal. Russo points out today that the team is shopping Cal Clutterbuck around and are trying to get back into the first round of the draft (their existing first round pick was sent to Buffalo in the Jason Pominville trade).

It has also been mentioned that the team could buyout Tom Gilbert, before the buyout window closes on July 4th, to clear his $4M off the cap. It would give them much more breathing room in the cap to work with this year (the team only has $3.6M in cap space right now).

Chuck Fletcher has a history of draft day trades. Every one of them should be considered a success. So should he choose to make a move on Sunday, the odds that the trade works in his favor are very high (credit for the previous trades also go to Brent Flahr, who has been the unsung hero of the Wild front office).

If nothing at all happens today, you can sure expect an abundance of moves tomorrow. Players and picks will be moved at a high rate, bringing Gary Bettman to the podium far too many times than we would care for.

Fasten your seat belts, folks. It is going to be a great day.

Required Draft Reading:

• Dan Chan, from Hockey Wilderness, tells us that the Wild need to draft physical defenseman and goal scorers. He also gives his Top 100 Rankings (this will come in handy tomorrow when Seth Jones and Nate Mackinnon are off the boards).
• First Round Bust has literally spent the entire month going over all things draft related, so just click on this link and you can find all their draft coverage.
• TSN's Bob McKenzie gives his draft rankings.
• ESPN's Scott Burnside tells us who to keep an eye on.

Follow Giles on Twitter @gilesferrell

Wild Interested Jordan Staal?

The offseason can't come enough for Wild fans. The team holds the #7 pick in the entry draft, they are expected to sign Mikael Granlund (The team's #1 prospect) to his entry level contract, and nearly $18 million of cap space so they could pursue notable free agents such as F Zach Parise and/or D Ryan Suter. But Sunday, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review suggested that the Wild are one of four potential canidates to land the Penguins Center.

The article suggests that Staal would be a perfect leader for the team (Taking a shot at its current leader, Mikko Koivu), citing old Penguins connections with Chuck Fletcher (former Pens assistant GM) and Mike Yeo (former Pens assistant coach), so he would be familiar with Yeo's system. It then goes on to list who the Wild could offer in return, saying Cal Clutterbuck, Devin Setoguchi, and the team's #7 overall pick in the entry draft would be tossed around.

After I read this article, I came away with the following thoughts:

1. There would be a surplus of centers. Should Staal put on the iron range red next fall, the Wild would have Koivu, Staal, Kyle Brodziak, and Matt Cullen all slotted in at center. Meaning, someone (Most likely Cullen) would have to take the demotion to the fourth line, unless they would accept a spot on the wing. And don't forget Granlund is a center, but one would think he will play wing for a year or two before moving into the middle.
2. The Wild would be unwilling to part with Clutterbuck and the #7 pick. Despite what Josh Yohe (the writer of the article) think, the Wild value both of them quite a bit. Clutterbuck is a perfect player in the Mike Yeo system. He gives it 100% every shift, plays gritty, and can score a goal when is called upon to do so. And the team would be more than likely to draft a defenseman (something they sorely need down in the system) with the #7 pick, so giving that up for another forward would just not work out to Chuck Fletcher's advantage. As for Setoguchi, one could see the Wild be willing to part with him due to all the young forwards coming up in their system. And he is coming off a down year, so perhaps he could use a fresh start on a team featuring Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin as the top centers.
3. Staal would have to sign an extension before being traded here. Staal is under contract with Pittsburgh for just one more year. So giving up a very good package for him would be a waste on just a one year rental. The team would need Staal to sign a contract extension (Probably somewhere around $7 million a season over 4-6 years) before they even think of pulling the trigger. 
4. Who would be top line center? Mikko Koivu has been the team's #1 center for four years now. He's also been the team's permanent captain for three years. But in those years he has seen his share of wings come and go, and this past season it appears he found a good linemate with him in Dany Heatley. But a big knock on Mikko is he is not considered a top line center. He is more suited for a second line center spot. So should the team get Staal, it should be assumed that Jordan would man the top line center spot. But, it easily could go the other way too.

After taking all this in, I came to this conclusion: The Wild should not go after Jordan Staal simply due to the fact he would cost this team too much. There are plenty of teams interested in him, and even the package listed in the article would simply not be enough compared to what other teams can offer. They should and most likely will stick to going after the free agents with all the cap room they have.

It was a nice thought. But its one of those things you can try out in a video game, not real life.

Be Thankful

For a change, the Wild are sitting nicely in the standings this Thanksgiving. They have stunned everyone in the NHL with their 13-5-3 record at the quarter pole in the 2011-12 season. With that said, here are some things to be thankful for today while we sit around and eat turkey:

• Matt Cullen has 8 goals and 12 points so far this year, he scored 12 goals and 39 points all of last year.
• Josh Harding has fully recovered from his torn ACL and his 6-1-1, 1.82, .942 line is one of the best in the NHL.
• With the great outings from Harding, Nik Backstrom has stepped his game up (7-4-2, 1.97 GAA, .935 SV%) giving the team a potent 1-2 punch between the pipes every night.
• The young defenseman (Marco Scandella, Jared Spurgeon, Justin Falk, Nate Prosser) have carried on the success of playing for Mike Yeo, and have stepped up to deliver on of the league's best defenses.
• Mikko Koivu and Dany Heatley click very well on a line together.
• Kyle Brodziak gets the job done with good old fashioned hard work.
• Cal Clutterbuck's mustache is second to none.
• Mike Yeo has this team believing they can win every night...and it shows.
  
• The Wild are first in their division, in their conference, and in the National Hockey League.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving Folks!

Power Play Woes

If there has been one thing that has ailed the Wild this season, its been their power play. A promising opening night in that department (2/4), has since been drowned out by a horrid stretch of play while on the man advantage. In the 7 games since opening night, the Wild have gone 1 for 27 on the PP, including the 0 for 19 stretch they are currently under. The last time Minnesota got a tally on the man advantage, was Devin Setoguchi's goal in Ottawa. Clearly, something has to change on the team's PP unit.

The main concern for me, is that I have grown tired of watching a forward (Lately it has been Pierre-Marc Bouchard) sit on the point with the top line. PMB's performance on the Power Play has been simply abysmal. For proof of this, watch his PP shifts against Pittsburgh. But, there is a lack of scoring defenseman on the team, and it would appear that we will be seeing a forward on the PP blueline for most of the season (Unless the team acquires a defenseman that can score). It also creates a lack of punch on the second line of the PP when PMB sits on the point, and guys like Bulmer and Clutterbuck take his spot (Not exactly the offensive types). But, Mike Yeo has taken notice of PMB's performance, and as Russo points out today, it would appear he is going back to the second PP line, while Matt Cullen takes over on the point.

Another concern with the man advantage is still the lack of shots this team is taking. The Wild are still towards the bottom of the league in shots taken (27th-25.4 shots per game), despite their offensive upgrades this offseason. And as much as I like the quality of their shots, it would still be nice to see them take more shots, period. You never know what can happen when you fire one on net. Hopefully, Yeo feels the same way and sends them the message to start firing more frequently.

I know, there are still some growing pains going on with the new system of Yeo. So you would like to think that at some point, the power play (and the team for that matter) can take off. Perhaps Yeo would also try juggling his PP lines up a bit, much like he has with his regular top lines (Switching up PMB and Devin Setoguchi between lines 1 and 2), to see if he can spark his stale PP units.

This team is very capable of scoring, so you would like to think that that the power play can get out of its funk sooner rather than later. This team needs a strong power play to help the lack of scoring on the team, in general. Otherwise, if it stays like this, we are going to be in for a frustrating season once again.