First let me say that A: I don't think there will be a lockout. and B: I realize that a lockout would damage everyone involved with the league. C: this is more of a question, than a comment. D: finding any way that the Wild might benefit will most likely cause the rest of the league to do anything in their power to avoid it. While a lockout would do a lot of damage to the league is it possible that with Wild's prospect pool looking like it may come to maturity two or three years from now, be less damaging to the Wild than many "aging" teams? I think that the Wild would like to be able to bring over many of the more highly reguarded European prospects and give them a year in the AHL to adjust to the game and learn the "Process", it would also allow many of the U.S. college players to either grow either in college or as a professional in the AHL as well. In general it would put less pressure on the younger guys to make that next step. The AHL would be a hybred of it's current self as most NHL teams would leave otherwise NHL ready players down on the farm. I am not sure how the less than desirable contracts that the Wild have left over from HWSRN would be effected, would a year fall off of those contracts or would they just be extended out a year for an older version of the same over payed players? This is just something that a friend and I were talking about and I thought I would ask for your input as well.

Can we all stop whining.

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let's get the nicknames right.

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Hey Wilderness,  I have a small group of guys, who share a pair of Wild season tickets and looking for a partner.

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Wild.com is reporting that general admission tickets for the draft are available.

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Well, it's cold the rinks are frozen..

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Richards says, "I don't know."  well I have five suggestions to get rid of the second period lag.

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Not me.  Marion had a great season.  I think the total was 42 goals!  44 Assists, a career high in points and I think goals as well.  As the the highest paid player on the team, he delivered, pretty much all season long.  He stayed  healthy for the most part, ,he showed off his speed and was a sniper with that amazing snapshot when he was fed the puck.  What else could Ranger fans ask for?........hhhmmmm......oh wait......I think I might know, the same things that the Wild fans always wanted from him, come through in big situations, so as a Ranger fan you would think hey our top guy's gonna rise to the occasion, afterall this game is the entire season, $7 million players raise their play in big games.  OK Marion was blanked in regulation and OT,  the Flyers must have really keyed in on him to eliminate him.  Now the season comes down to a shootout,  all the Marbles and the guy get's to shoot,  the flyers cannot keep him from shooting.. What happens?  Tortelinni leaves him on the bench, the Rangers lose, Gaborik is back in Slovakia by midnight.  

Ranger fans can at least take solice in that they now know what Wild fans know.  The guy is incredibly tallented.  He has amazing speed a laser for a shot and great hands.  Unfortunaltely he has the nerves of a cracked out meth-head in big moments, he folds under the weight of a big game, he is not a leader and you cannot afford to pay $7,000,000 a year to a player that does not make the WHOLE team better.

By all accounts his teammates love him, both here and in NY.  At my job there are a lot of people that I like being around, enjoy their company and wish for them fantastic things.  I love them like family, but in a crisis situation, I probably won't followor even listen to if our lives are on the line, they are not leaders and I think Gaborik is in the same catagory. 

I am so glad the wild did not pay him that money, while we are not in the best situation, at least we are not saddled with that salary for a role player

Watching NHL on the Fly kind of curious about potvin calling the Wild a long shot to make up the three points to grab the eighth playoff spot.  I say who says we can't make up the twelve  to grab the 3 seed?  The Wild are improving all the time and doing well against the Div. which makes up the bulk of the remaining schedule.  Edmonton is dead and the three teams above the Wild all have pretty big question marks.  Calgary is imploding and dropping through the standings like a brick.  Vancouver is about to set out on a 13 or 14 game road trip, they will not play as a team at the Garage until mid March,  If they get a bad start to this road trip, the whole thing could go south in a hurry.  Colorado is playing well, but they have a lot of young players that have never playe3d at this level and this is grueling schedule coming up.  I like the way they ar3e playing other than the ever shortening lapses.  I am not saying they are gonna do it,  I just don't think it is as much of a longshot as some people especially the national media.  and hopefully it can get some convo going in here.

     I was at the Blues game on sat. so I did not have any commentators input.    In the third period, after Nolan and a Blues player recieved offsetting roughing penalties,  Andrew Brunette skated over to penalty box and sat with Nolan for the duration of the penalty.  The friend that was at the game with me and I assumed that Nolan had recieved a ten minute misconduct on top of the roughing, but was out at the end of the two minutes.  Did they mention this on the broadcasts or did anyone else at the game notice this.  Is it legal to voluntarily send a player  to the box to sit and stratigize with. a penalized player.  I have never seen or heard of this before.  Any input would be great.

Is it me or is our team and it's television affiliates holding back the local broadcast schedule?  It is fast approaching time for my group of four's Season ticket draft.  last year at this time I knew which games were planned to be aired and which were not.  Versus has their schedule up, but I am unable to find the local broadcast schedule on the Wild's page FSN or even Forty Five.  I hope they are not holding off an announcement of the TV schedule in order to try to sell more tickets.  Have things gotten that bad?

Okay, going into July, I figured, as many of you, that Saku Koivu would be signing here, but even at before free agency began after looking at the list, I was thinking hey, Mike Comrie wouldn't be  a bad pickup and if we missed Saku, they would go right after Comrie.  Did I miss Comrie signing somewhere else?  Is he a bad fit for some reason?  or am I being too impatient?   Why not get Comrie?

     Friday's game against the Predators, which was not scheduled to be televised, will be on Channel 45, this according to Wild.com.   So to the guy that shares season tickets with us and scooped it up just in front of me because it wasn't on TV, I say "Too bad Tad, I get to watch it anyway."  Thinking about heading down there anyhow to try to get some Gametime Rush Tickets. anyhow.  Go Wild!  Yeah the life of a MN sports fan, can't give up until I see the corpse myself.

Well with the fat lady warming up, I was curious to get everyone's opinion on the coaching change that is hopefully coming.  Do you think they will give Mike Ramsey a shot?  Bring Kevin Constatine up from Houston?  Whichever does not get it will probably start looking elsewhere, or they could both leave if The Wild goes out the org. for a coach.  I like Ramsey and think the Wild will probably give it to him, DR wanting to "stay the course".  I worry that he would try to continue what Lemaire is doing, but who knows.  Whatever they do I hope they make the decision fast, so that the new guy has a chance to get himself set up as much as possible.

Just cast my first ballot for the All-Star game, to my dismay I saw that brent Burns wasn't even making the leader board.  I am not saying that he is the best Dman in the league but he deserves a hell of a lot more recognition than he gets around this league.  hopefully we can put together a get out and vote campaign and get Burnsie up on the leader board where he belongs.

  Don't waste a vote for Gaborik a player will have had to have played in 20 games by mid January and that's just not gonna happen for Mary-Anne,  those menstral cramps will keep her sidelined at least til mid December.

  you can vote at NHL.com

 

Just to let you know I put up the same thing on Yahoo's Wild Message board, so, no I am not just copying someone elses stuff.

I do believe this will be up here at the end of the year, so we can look back.   Just for shots and goggles.
While we have given up some scoring, which I believe will cost us the Northwest Division  title, who cares we have a banner to raise Oct. 11.  In exchange for that scoring we have added offensive grit. We have enough offense to make the playoffs and the increase in Grit will garner not one, but two playoff series wins, but alas our lack of physical dominance espescially defensively will cost us in the Conf. Finals and prevent the Wild's premier at The Stanley Cup Finals.
All in All:
2nd in NW barely
5th seed in West
Western Conf. Runner Up in the playoffs.

Call me a homer if you want,  But I have been right more often than wrong with this team and do believe that DR and company have a great plan and arwe following it to make us an eventual dynasty along the line of edmonton and the Islanders.

     I do question some things but in the end "In Dougie I trust."

       I Share season tickets.  There are four of us, we draft games ala a fantasy sports league.  the last three games taken are always the preseason games.  This year's fodder is the The Blow Jobs, I mean the Blue Jackets, the Hawks and the Sabres,  all of witch come during the regular season as well.  I am sorry but going to these games seems like a chore.   We do not get every team here in the regular season and I don't think I am alone as Wild fan, that I am also a fan of the NHL in general.   Why woudn't the teams try to add some value and interest to these games by bringing in teams that do not come here during the regular season.  I have more than enough chances to see Columbus and Chicago this year to get excited about the games in the preseason.   Now, if my only chance to see New Jersey, The Flyers, The Rangers, Ottawa, or even the revamped Lightning live was during the preseason,  I would be able to say, "Hey it's the only time they are in town this year.".   It wouldn't be nearly the chore it is and maybe I might take some interest in the preseason game, instead of just giving the tickets to my brother in law, which is what I probably do if I do not get the first pick in the draft, on the other hand if I do get the first pick, I will still end up having to shell out cash to the other drafters to make up for the value of my extra reguar season ticket.  predetermined values for each game before the lottery.

      With a lull in the action right now,  just kind of waitng for the schedule to come out,  I thought I might share an experience and ask Wild fans for a little help in a new experience

                          As well as being a partial season ticket holder, a small group of friends and I have started to attend one Wild road game a year.  This season will be year three.  So far we have done Chicago and St. Louis  First we went to Chi. Obviously a great city to visit, but throw in a Wild win along with it happening to be the weekend tha Bears were hosting the Saints in the NFC Championship game, it was Awesome.  Lots rowdy Cajuns mixed in with a bunch Alcoholic Minnesotans, great time.  Last year we went to St. Louis,  I know, you think...."St. Louis...Blah, but it actually is pretty cool little town as long as you stay west of the river.  We stayed at the Adam''s Mark Hotel.  I would recommend it if you go,  it's right accross the street from the Arch and everything else,other than the Bud Brewery, including Scottrade Center, is within an easy walking distance.

            Scottrade is a cool Arena,  when you walk around the concourse they have life sized pictures of all the "Blues Hall of Fame" players, they call them Blues Heroes including the likes of Al Arbour, Bernie Federko, Brian Sutter and Jacques Plante among many others.  The Fans at the game are great, Just like in Chicago they all wanted to talk about the old days and memories of the old North Star players.

              I was wondering if anyone else has gone to any road games and if they have any recommendations.    The idea from the start was to hit all the old Norris Div. teams first and next up is Detroit,  but I think I might change that plan and visit the Winnepeg Jets Franchise down in sunny Phoenix this year instead,  kind of tired the cold weather teams for now.  Detroit might be a little easier this year to get tickets becouse the Mich. economy is struggling,  but then again what the F---- is there to do in Detoilet other than the game, maybe get shot at Chellie's Chili Bar, but who knows I wasn't all the geefed about St. Louie either.  any recommendations and experiences would be great to hear.    Thanks