Far be it from me to complain about an embarrassment of riches, but we knew this day was coming. We are now getting news that Marek Zidlicky and a whole slew of other players are practicing once again, so the notion that one of our current defensemen will soon be riding pine in the press box or sent down to Houston is coming closer to a reality. I don't see Zidlicky taking the spots of either Nick Schultz, nor Greg Zanon, so that leaves four defensemen who should be worried about losing their position. After the jump let's look into the merits of each of these blue-liners.

Continue reading this post »

A lot of change is going to come to the Wild this off-season.  Todd Richards is gone, and a new coaching search will begin shortly.  The Wild has 6 NHL-level UFA's, Andrew Brunette, Antti Miettinen, Chuck Kobasew, John Madden, Jose Theodore, and Josh Harding, with no guarantee that any of these men will be re-signed. One thing that shouldn't change however, is Chuck Fletcher's continued work to re-stock our prospect pool with high quality players.  Fletcher continues to add to that with College Free Agents like North Dakota Defensemen Chay Genoway, but let's take a look at some players who could be available for the Wild in this year's upcoming draft, where the Wild are slated to pick 10th, pending tonight's Lottery.  

Continue reading this post »

So our behemoth of a bruiser has gotten his first point of the season.  Assisting on a Brian Boyle goal, The Boogeyman is on pace for (gasp) 27 points this season.  While I don't think he'll get anywhere near that many points,  I just thought it would be interesting to to know that 3 games in and our affable enforcer has already reached a quarter of his total production from last season.  Who know's maybe the Rangers were onto something when they paid him $1.6 million. ;) 

I am happy to relay the news that arbitrator Richard Bloch has sided with the NHL and rejected Ilya Kovalchuk's 17-year deal with New Jersey today.  His reasoning was that this contract deliberately circumvented the salary cap.  I know this doesn't really affect the Wild directly, but I just wanted to get the Wilderness' reaction to this decision today and how people think things will progress from this point for our favorite hockey soap opera.