The 2014-15 Minnesota Wild: Defense

Photo: Carlos Gonzalez/Star Tribune

The Wild were expected to take a step forward on the defensive side of things in 2013-14. They signed Keith Ballard and youngsters Jonas Brodin, Jared Spurgeon, and Marco Scandella were expected to progress and be big factors for the Wild.

Preseason Game Four & Lineup Thoughts

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In last night's fourth preseason game, Minnesota edged Pittsburgh 4-1. Jason Pominville netted a hat trick, Darcy Kuemper made 32 saves, and Ilya Bryzgalov was killing time by taking selfies with fans on the bench. Onto the notes...

2013-14 Season In Review: Jared Spurgeon

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Looking back at Jared Spurgeon's 2013-14 season.

Playoff Wrap-Up

Recapping the playoffs.

Round 1: Minnesota def. Colorado 4-3
Round 2: Chicago def. Minnesota 4-2

Key Players For The Wild Against Chicago

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Wild/Blackhawks begin tonight. Lets take a meander at the player the Wild need to step up (or continue on, in one case) as they open up the second round.

A Few Words On Patrick Bordeleau

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Three days ago, the entire hockey world was in uproar over Matt Cooke's knee on Tyson Barrie. Barrie was ruled out with an MCL injury for 4-6 weeks, and Cooke was eventually suspended for seven games by the Department of Player Safety.

Minnesota Wild 2014 Regular Season Awards

More wrap-up of the regular season continues today, as we hand out some hardware for the Wild's 2013-14 regular season. This year, we finally got some names for these various awards, honoring the past Wild players who excelled in these particular categories.

Without further ado, here are the winners:

Gameday Thoughts

Photo: Ann Heisenfelt/AP

Wild host the Blackhawks tonight at 7 PM. Since I have about 1,000 (slight exaggeration) thoughts right now, lets get on with it.

The 2013-14 Minnesota Wild: The X-Factors

After looking closely at the forwards, defense, and goaltending, its time to single out a player from each of those areas who most needs to make an impact on the Wild roster this season to help this team succeed.

The 2013-14 Minnesota Wild: Defense

Coming out of the 2011-12 season, the Minnesota Wild defense was just abysmal. They had traded away blueliners Nick Schultz, Marek Zidlicky, and Greg Zanon mid-season and brought in Tom Gilbert to help get a spark going offensively from the blueline (Gilbert had five assists while playing the role of top defenseman).

Wild Re-Sign Jared Spurgeon

Today the Minnesota Wild announced they have re-signed D Jared Spurgeon to a three year deal. Per Russo, the deal will cost Minnesota $2.66M towards the cap each season.

Spurgeon was an RFA this summer, and until he was signed this afternoon, it was not clear when he was going to sign. The two sides had been reportedly far apart on the specifics of the deal. Apparently it all came together this afternoon, as the specifics got worked out and Spurgeon signed on for another three years.

Jared is coming off an uneven 2013 season where he registered 5 goals, 10 assists while averaging over 21 minutes of ice time a game this season. He was a big part of the Wild power play, scoring four goals, while bouncing back and forth between the first and second PP line (sometimes Mike Yeo rolled out four forwards on the top PP, pushing Spurgeon to the second PP line). But he struggled in the last month (only 2 assists in April), and was rather abysmal in the defensive zone.

Based on the lack of great play from Spurgeon in 2013, one would say that this is a bit of overpayment for the defenseman. But should he be able to step up and be the defenseman he is capable of being, this deal will probably end up being a steal for the Wild.

Spurgeon is slated to open the season on the second d-pairing with Marco Scandella, who is also coming off an uneven 2013 season.


Follow Giles on Twitter @gilesferrell

Realistic Expectations

In case you lived under a rock all day Wednesday, the Wild signed on coveted free agents Zach Parise and Ryan Suter. The news was by far the most celebrated news since it was announced that Minnesota was getting a hockey team back in June of 1997.

Today, there has been a lot of talk on what expectations are for this team, now that they have Parise, Suter, and their talented prospects signing on to play with either the Wild or their AHL affiliate, Houston. There have been some out there (Bleacher Report), who believes that this team has instantly become a Stanley Cup contender overnight. But, most realistic people (such as myself), believe this team has elevated themselves to a definite playoff team, but not much more than that.

Even with Suter in the fold now, the defense on this team is still very young and inexperienced. Youngsters Marco Scandella, Jared Spurgeon, and Justin Falk (who signed a 1 year contract yesterday) look to improve from their first full season in the NHL in 2011-12. Tom Gilbert was brought in at the trade deadline to add some offensive to the blue line. And Clayton Stoner is back with the team on a new two year deal and he brings some much needed physicality to the defense. Its not exactly the best, but potentially, it could be a good one.

The Wild offensively should be solid with the top 3 lines consisting of Heatley-Koivu-Parise, PMB-Granlund-Setoguchi, and Cullen-Brodziak-Clutterbuck. They should be in the 10-15 range in terms of goal scoring in the NHL.

So, yes, we all should expect playoff hockey next April. But should we expect Mikko Koivu to be lifting the Stanley Cup next June? No.

But it will be the most fun we have had in 4 years…

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!

Training Camp Scrimmage

This past weekend, the Wild held team scrimmages on Saturday and Sunday that were open to the public. I made it to the Saturday session, and I was able to watch most of Sunday's session on the Wild website. In the two scrimmages, just one goal was scored, and it was a Dany Heatley penalty shot goal. So here are my thoughts and observations from the scrimmages:

• The Heatley-Koivu-Setoguchi line looked good for the most part. Their chemistry look good, and hopefully after a few games it can get even better. I noticed Heatley had more of a hesitation to shoot in the scrimmages, but I also think that should go away as the start playing actual games. I did take some video's of the top line when they were on the ice, but the shifts I got on tape, weren't anything special. So here is one of them.
  

• Guillaume Latendresse looked very sharp in these two sessions. For one, he has slimmed down and has come into camp in very good shape. He showed good speed, and had a lot of jump in his strides. I can't remember a shift where he didn't make something happen for the positive. He will be a huge key for the Wild's success this season, so having him play like that is very big.
• I payed a lot of attention to our young defenseman (Marco Scandella, Justin Falk, and Jared Spurgeon) during this session. They all seemed to do okay, but none stuck out as having a great scrimmage. I will give Scandella credit for a laser shot he fired on Saturday that hit the crossbar. Probably the best shot I saw all weekend.
  
• Pierre-Marc Bouchard looked outstanding in yesterday's session. He missed Saturday with a hamstring injury, but was back on the ice Sunday. And on top of that he was on the line with Latendresse and Matt Cullen, and that line looked as good as line 1 yesterday. As Michael Russo pointed out, having Gui and Butch back gives this team a different element.
• I also payed particular attention to C Zack Phillips (Acquired in Setoguchi trade) this weekend. He didn't do anything that stuck out, but he had some solid shifts. It will be interesting to see how he handles being in camp with these guys at the age of 18.
• Lastly, the teams only scored one goal in the two sessions. I didn't think it was a bad thing, but it is certainly not a good thing. My guess is that the players are still getting used to the new system, so as always, it will take some time to get used to. I think the goals will come in due time, but hopefully they can get that sorted out in the preseason.
  
• The Wild open their preseason schedule Tuesday at Edmonton. No one on the top line will be traveling, but the Latendresse-Cullen-Bouchard line will be. I look forward to see them in a actual game. The Wild's first home preseason game is Friday vs Columbus.