Now that we've got that out of the way, welcome to the last few games of the 2012 NHL regular season, or as Wild fans know it... sweet release from this interminable season. Also, it is the kick off of the official crazy trade and draft scenario season. Woo!

As we all know, the Wild got knocked down... well, they've decided to get back up again prior to the end of the season, which has translated to a little volatility in my chart. After the break, let's take a look at the current standings, offer up some thoughts, and then we can get to the fun of debating.

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Matt Hackett: Eyes on the Prize.

Hopefully, the MN Wild after the 2012 draft. The Watch is a bit late as I was awfully busy last week, and was in a training session on Friday. That's okay, we now have 7 games left stretched over 2 weeks. We're in that lousy stretch at the end of the season where the Wild are already eliminated but still have games left. The team is talking about winning and battling for pride, but where every win feels a little bit more like a loss. Let's make this clear, pride and solid hockey games are great, but the one thing that remains exciting is the very real chance that the Wild could end up with a top 2 pick, and potentially the second best chance to pick 1st.

There is some pretty exciting talent at the top of this year's draft class, and the Wild will likely draft a solid player no matter where they pick in the top 10. However, there could be some franchise game breakers available at the top, so let's take a look at where the Wild, and the other teams stand in getting a shot to draft the future.

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I have to get this out a day earlier than I would like as I'll be away from a computer for the better part of the next 5 or 6 days. Still, there are plenty of interesting story lines and bottom of the league movement to talk about.

When i started this thing, 6 weeks ago, when the Wild had just fallen out of a playoff position, most people scoffed at the idea of the Wild ending up with a top 5 pick. The common sentiment is that there were just too many truly lousy teams bellow the Wild in the standings. The Wild have gone down, down, down, through that burning ring of mediocrity and landed flop in the middle of a pile of lousy themselves (injury aided, of course).

After the jump, lets take a look at the suddenly extremely close draft position rankings. Crappy teams have never been so interesting to follow before.

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The end of this Icarus season is within site. The Wild on their wax wings flew high, ever so high, and found that the #1 team in the NHL really can melt your wings right off... you know when you can't find scoring wings or a center to put on the ice. Anyway, the Wild spent most of this week sitting in the 6th draft position, before winning in a shootout last night. The trajectory for this team has remained mostly the same. They are losing a lot, scoring almost not at all, and finding new and interesting ways to rush new players to the team to cover injuries.

After the jump, let's take a look at the current draft chart, make some basic analysis, and then, for the first time, I invite us to really start looking at draft position, team needs, and players that you'd like to see the Wild draft with a certain realism.

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We have entered that part of the season that I like to call the FOG. The Wild seem lost and flailing about. As is always the case, the team seems to not be able to see a clear direction to pursue. This past week has seen the Wild do just enough to stay ahead of those teams just behind them but also lose just a little bit more ground in the playoff chase. Yet, the team is still talking playoffs, and I'm sure that we'll see Koivu come back some time in the last two weeks of the season, and perhaps spark two or three wins to close things out, and the talking points will be about missed opportunities and missing players down the stretch. We shall see, and I'm sure we'll have a discussion about it in the weeks to come.

Anyway, the Wild won against a pretty bad San Jose team, made an interesting trade, lost embarrassingly against the Kings, and looked terrible but somehow came back and managed to get a point against the worst team in the East. After the break, we'll break down the draft spot chart, and talk a bit about the trends.

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Hello, welcome the third update of the MN Wild's weekly Draft Pick watch. The past week featured a big win over Boston and an even rarer occurrence... a SO win that featured not only a PP goal but also Backstrom with a perfect SO. Crazy things happen this time of year. Talking about crazy check out those Blue Jackets... they've now undersold both Antoine Vermette and, yesterday, Jeff Carter.

Well, after the jump lets take a look at this weeks draft pick standings. You'll notice that things haven't changed much, with the exception of Tampa Bay cooling off and starting to sell, and Columbus trying to convince the world that they found a shortcut to the other side of the world... to a competitive hockey team... by selling Jeff Carter for Jack Johnson and what will likely be a 12th to 18th draft pick.

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Last week Friday, Feb 10, in the discussion about Staubitz hitting waivers (the only thing that guy seems to be able to hit) I made a joke that the Wild had a better shot at ending up with a top 5 draft pick than making the playoffs this year. You can go back and find the reply in that post... I wrote out a whole chart for the non-playoff positions teams, their current points, recent record, etc. At the time, the Wild were sitting in the 12th pick spot.

Well, I've decided to do a little weekly draft slot update, as it seems that he Wild might just make a run at my off the cuff prediction. Basically, how low (in the number of the final draft pick) can they go? For the record, I am still predicting a #8 pick for the Wild.

After the jump, check out the current standings (1st pick through the current Wild position, with points, recent record, change, and upcoming games).

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I'm not going in the same direction as the very complete and awesome post by biggity.  Yes, this team has a collection of very unique and interesting prospects, all very well suited to a style of play that will probably best highlight and utilize Ricky's talents and unique vision.  I wouldn't mind watching that mad scientist experiment if they got the right coach to put it together, and to figure out how that team would play defensively.

I'm posting about another thing that this team has... a whole lot of.  The current TWolves are stocked full of decent contributing ballers who nearly all are on their rookie deals still.  Think about that: Ricky, Wes, Beasley, KLove, D Williams, Randolph... all still on their rookie deals.  Yes, no one is getting traded right now.  But, I think I see a plan here.  The Wolves weren't able to trade that #2 pick for anything that knocked their socks off.  So, they stood pat, and did the wise thing, take that perceived second best player in the draft.

What might the plan be?

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(Rather longish post with my thoughts about the recent moves of the Wild and a take on their future)

In the last week, the Wild have made some pretty clear statements about their intent and plan.  They have stepped back from the stance that making the playoffs is the primary goal. 

Since Fletcher was hired, the Wild have had the dual mission of trying to catch up and add as much talent as possible but still push to get back in the playoffs.  With a salary cap team already, there wasn't much Fletcher could do about the latter goal, except hope for good health and some player breakthroughs.  They had terrible health, inconsistent play, and a general lack of motivation.  The moves that Fletcher made specifically for the short term goal of the playoffs have mostly not worked, and have been expensive.  Cam Barker has gotten worse, and Chuck Kobasew was never able to take control of his opportunities to get on a scoring line, or make much of any impact.  Resigning Marek Zidlicky was expensive.  Matt Cullen and Eric Nystrom are expensive for what they offer.  The good news is that none of these deals have really cost the Wild a great deal, but they have slowed down the possible re-growth of this team.

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Not a good month for the Minnesota Wid's Kobe Bryant. Uh... Cam Barker. 

I think most of us are used to the usual lack of activity by teams during the playoffs.  We don't think much about it any more, at least real hockey fans don't.  Well, the Stanley Cup finals have already started, and we are three weeks away from the Draft.  The Wild are getting ready to start their off season work at full pace.

Here is a link to a great summary article by Russo which covers a bunch of topics about the off season in a conversation with Chuck Fletcher.  Some of the things mentioned are the new coach search, new coach's input into the off season, player trades, and a possible buyout of Cam Barker.  Take a look at Russo's article, and I'll break some of the stuff down.

Editor's note: We will have more on the coaching search starting today.

Make the jump and discuss the potential Barker buy out, and the coaching search. 

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I was perusing some sports related articles, as i often do when I have a couple minutes of free time, and I was reading an update on the ongoing NFL labor issues.  It was a rather longish article covering the different positions and all the myriad different legal cases being fought by different groups all around this single issue.  Nothing all that new or all that interesting in all of that.  That is, of course, until I get to the very end of the article, the last line in fact... and there is a reference to the NHL already preparing for its possible labor issues a year from now.  I'll add the line along with the context from the article:

The chamber, like the NFL, noted that the dispute is currently before the National Labor Relations Board in the form of an unfair labor negotiations charge against the players. Until then, the chamber said, the court fight should be on hold and the NFL should be able to lock out its players if needed.

“For the collective bargaining process to work as Congress intended, the parties to the dispute must largely be left by the courts to their own devices,” the chamber said. “The prospect of self-help forces the parties to make difficult choices” with the option of judges coming to their aid.”

The NHL, which could face its own labor problem next year, earlier filed a similar brief supporting the NFL

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In the shadow of the sad news this past weekend, weighing on all Wild fans, there have been a few good things to happen for the franchise and its prospects and players.  I thought that I'd at least share the news in case people weren't keeping up on some of the developments.

The Houston Aeros are up 2 games to 0 in their Western Conference final against Hamilton.  The Aeros won game 2 by a score of 3 - 2 behind goals from Earl, Scandella, and Gillies.  Jared Spurgeon had 2 assists, and Matt Hackett made 27 saves.  This puts the Aeros 2 wins from a Calder Cup final appearance.  The series moves to Hamilton now, for at least the next 2 games.  Keep up the great work, guys!

Also, on Sunday, the Finnish hockey team won the World Championship with a 6 to 1 victory over rival Sweden.  Finland scored 5 goals in the third period to overwhelm their opponents.  Mikko Koivu recorded 2 assists in the game, and Mikael Granlund had 1 assist.  For the tournament, Granland was Finland's second leading scorer with 9 points (2g-7a) in 9 games.  Mikko scored 8 points in the 9 games.

The Czech Republic team featuring Martin Havlat and Marek Zidlicky beat Russia in the Bronze Medal game.

Russo has just reported that the Wild have been informed that Mikko Lehtonen, the goal scoring prospect the Wild received as part of the Anton Khudobin trade, has signed a contract with a KHL team.  While it is still possible for the Wild to sign and bring the kid to camp, as the Wild own his rights, it seems unlikely.

Russo's Blog Post

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Now, exactly who would call a "End of the Year" news conference for before the team's last game of the year?  That's right, it's our friendly POBO.  The Wolves have schedule a new conference for 11am today, and from what I hear have all termed it their 'end of the year' conference.  The timing is a little odd with only one game left, and that game is several hours after this news conference.

Any thoughts on what the conference might cover?  Will we see any major announcements?  Or, is this just going to be a lot more glad-handing by Kahn?

Every sports team in MN, college and pro, have been jumping off of the WCCO train for their radio coverage.  I mean, every team... Twins, Gophers, etc.  Today, the Wild, the last big local team on WCCO announced that they were heading for KFAN. 

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According to reports, Jose Calderon tore a muscle in his leg during the final moments of the game with the USA.  He will miss at least 4 weeks.  It looks like Rubio will be finding himself with a bit more playing time, and focus, in the coming tournament.   Calderon injured

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