Fixing the Wild

After jumping on the bandwagon for a thrilling Chicago Blackhawks Stanley Cup run, and in anticipation of the NHL draft this Friday, it seemed an appropriate time to address the question of how to fix the Minnesota Wild.

The 2009-10 Wild season was hallmarked by the Two Is: Inconsistency and Irrelevance.  The team put itself behind the 8-ball with a slow start, and never found the sustained stretch of good play they need to edge into the playoff race.  Pretty much the entire season was spent in what I refer to as the "5 Tall Beer Zone", you've had enough beer to know driving could be a concern (read: potentially illegal), but not enough to get that nice strong buzz the heavy drinker relishes so.  (Ironic to be using this term in describing the Wild, since it typically took 5 tall beers before you could enjoy watching one of their games last season, as well as another 5 after to try and forget what you just saw.  It was ugly, get it?  The team specialized in two things, not scoring and pissing away multi-goal leads, as poor a combination as you can find anywhere.  I just cracked a beer right now thinking about it, need something to keep my hands from shaking while I type.) 

They would put together a solid week of hockey, climb within striking distance of a playoff spot, then drop a few games and sink back to where they started.  This process kept recurring all season, leaving the team mired in the worst possible spot, with neither a playoff berth, nor a high draft pick to show for things.  Some relevant numbers about the team's finish last season:

Points out of the playoffs - 11
Teams between the Wild and the #8 seed - 5
Goals for - 219 (22nd)
Goals against - 246 (21st)
Goal differential - -27(24th)

In short, it was an abject and total failure on every level.  The team did nothing particularly well, yet did not fare poorly enough to get a top draft pick who might make a quick impact...and that's the good news.
How can that be good news?  Because it was only one year.  It was a transition season, with a new GM and coach, things were supposed to be rocky.  It would've been the perfect time to bottom out, throw out a real clunker, grab a high draft pick and position the team to make a big splash coming into this season.  Although fans may not be ecstatic about throwing in the towel and expecting to lose, anyone with half a brain could see things were in a terrible mess.  Overburdened by bad contracts, lacking immediate help from the minors and having lost it's best player, the Wild needed to take a couple large steps back before it could consider moving forward.

When you fire your coach and GM, there's nothing more to complain about for a year or two, fans at least need a couple of fresh mistakes to pin on the new guy before they can go too crazy. There was in fact, only one thing that they could've possibly done wrong, one thing that would've been truly awful for the long-term rebuilind plans, which was to overpay the wrong free agent in a panic move...so of course, that's exactly what they did!  And here we are.

To set the stage for the discussion of the offseason, one over-arching truth must be remembered: There's no help coming from outside, or at least not without surrendering one of the team's current assets.  Michael Russo, who covers hockey for the Star Tribune and is the best sportswriter in town for my money, wrote this article last week about potential trades being the path to improvement in a weak free agent market (http://www.startribune.com/sports/wild/96622489.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUBP7hUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUr)  If this weak crop of free agents wasn't enough, the team also has no cash to spend on them.  The actual 2010-11 salary cap is TBD, but is assumed to land in the $57 million range.  Based on the info available here, http://www.hockeybuzz.com/cap-central/team.php?team=MIN, we know the following:

Committed cap space - $48.2 million
Estimate to retain restricted free agents (Latandresse, Earl, Ebbett, Harding) - $4.5 million
Dollars available to fill remaining 5 roster spots - $4.5 million

Pretty obvious that the team is not going to be in the running for even mid-level free agents, even players who could be added from the minors would be at or above the average remaining salary they have available.  I may be being a bit generous with my assumption on Latendresse, bumping his salary from $800k to $2 million next year.  But after acoring 25 goals in 55 games, I believe the team will attempt to sign him to a multi-year deal, and doing so will require a significant bump.  Even saving another half million on that deal would not change the situation, we're capped out and that's that.

Although it's unpalatable to the average season ticketholder, losing short-term to win long-term was the only option, since the Wild will now be forced to sink or swim with the same players next season.  Hitting rock bottom has been a tried-and-true path taken by several other teams, including the last two Cup champions.  Both Pittsburgh and Chicago were dreadful a few years ago, but the upside to all the losing was the drafting of franchise cornerstones who have already brought championships, and will ensure another decade of competitive hockey for their respective teams.  Acknowledging this just adds sting to another year of being mired in the middle.

I know I just seem to keep piling worse news on top of bad, but the final piece to the puzzle is the fact that even the Rock Bottom scenario is no longer an option, since all of the most expensive (and useless) players have contract with no trade clauses.  Basically, for this team to do anything next season, it's going to need bounce back years from a whoooooole lot of people.

And with that, we can kick off the discussion of "2010-11 Minnesota Wild Pyramid of Hope"TM


Laying the groundwork -  3 guys who need good seasons to keep the Wild out of the cellar


1) Martin Havlat - Or, as he with henceforth be know in this blog "Halfthat" (as in, if an elite player would score 40 goals, he'll get you Half that), was signed to a 6-year / $30 million dollar deal immediately on the heels of Marian Gaborik's departure to New York.  Now my sneaking suspicion is that this deal was the result of pressure placed on the GM by the team's new owner, Craig Leipold, in an attempt to placate the fanbase after the loss of the franchise's greatest star in it's young history (MaryAnn Groinorik, The Slovak Sissy).  I don't have anything to back this up, but it's the only way I can make sense of the signing.  If someone would like to offer a better explanation of why the logical move following the departure of your fragile European goal scorer is to bring in a less-productive fragile European goal scorer, I'm all ears.  Until then, I'm sticking with my initial opinon.

And although I may be overly negative, this isn't revisionist history here, I hated this signing at the time and the last year has only made that hate grow.  I had watched Halfthat's play during the playoffs that season, and thought he was a gritty player who brought good chemistry, but one look at his stats told me this was a player I wanted no part of on my favorite NHL team.  One 30-goal season to his credit, notching 31 with Ottawa during the 2003-04 season.  Prior to a great 2008-09 campaign, in which he tallied a 29-48-77 line, while playing alongside the Blackhawks dynamic duo of Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews (slight talent upgrade over what we have here), Halfthat had averaged 36 games played over the previous three seasons.  Excellent number if we're talking college hockey, unfortunately it only equates to 44% of an NHL schedule.  But hey, when you can get half a season of mediocre production for the price of a full season of stellar production, you have to do it...right?

Bottom line: The Wild need 30 goals and 60 points at a minimum (so basically double last year's production, you see how that works?) in the coming year if they are going to make the postseason.  NHL teams simply cannot pay superstar money to a player who is not providing superstar production.

2) Brent Burns - Two seasons ago, Brent Burns was coming off a breakout season in which he played all 82 games, scored 15 goals and added 28 assists.  At 23 years old, with 3 NHL seasons under it his belt, it appeared to every Wild fan that he would be the foundation of the team's blue line for the next decade, a dynamic 2-way defenseman with a knack for knowing when to jump into the play, there was simply nothing he couldn't do.  I haven't stopped to think about how much fun he was to watch that season in quite some time, and pausing to do it now, after what has unfolded over the last couple of years, is pretty damned depressing.

Sports can be like quicksand, with areas you thought were solid giving way in the blink of an eye and dragging everything down in an instant.  Nothing contributes more to this uncertainty than injuries, and Burns has been beset by a slew of them over the past two seasons, primarily concussions, limiting him to 106 games, and derailing a career on the rise.  No player on the Wild roster has the potential to impact the game in as many ways as Burns can, and did, when he is at his best.  At 25, his prime should just be beginning, but "concussion" is probably the single most frightening word in sport.  Not only does the threat of another hang over his career, it kills it's trade value.  On a team with a deep blue line, a healthy Burns would be one of the few potential assets that could fetch back the high-scoring forward the team desparately needs.  At the moment though, any deal would only bring back pennies on the dollar for a player once considered one of the top young defensemen in the NHL

Bottom line: Stay healthy.  That's it.  I firmly believe that if Brent Burns can stay on the ice for 70+ games this season, he will produce.  Maybe not at the level of the days when the Wild were at the top of the division, but at least enough to build up his value, and give the team another asset, rather than just another bad contract to add to the list.

3) Nicklas Backstrom - Now here is one I was dead wrong on.  Repeat after me: You do not pay $6 million a year for a goaltender.  Never.  Not ever.

When Backstrom burst onto the scene after signing a one-year deal with the Wild before the 2006-07 season, it was nothing short of unbelieveable.  The Finnish free agent out of nowhere was the best goalie in the league that season, posting eye-popping numbers (23-8 record, 1.67 GAA, .929 save %) while backstopping the team to a playoff berth.  Although the Wild were outsted in the first round that season by the eventual champion Anaheim Ducks, I had visions of dominant goaltending stretching years into the future.

A 2-year / $6.2 million contract followed, and things only got better.  A division title for the team in 2008 and All-Star selection for the goalie the following year made a contract extension for Backstrom the hottest topic surrounding the team during the spring of 2009.  I'm sorry to say I was in the camp that thought we should do whatever it took to keep him, despite arguments to the contrary from other fans, who stated his success was only a result of coach jacques Lemaire's defense-first system.  Eventually, the pressure to sign him became to great, and the team re-upped the goaltender to a 4-year / $24 million deal.  Then, as things are won't to do with NHL goaltending, the bottom dropped out.

The 2009-10 season was the team's first playing new coach Todd Richard's (allegedly) up-tempo style, and the results in net were not pretty.  After three straight seasons with a goals-against average under 2.35, Backstrom's number jumped to 2.72, and we officially had a problem.  To put this in prespective, the worst GAA for any NHL regular last season was 2.76, only two goaltenders were worse than Backstrom last season, one began the season as a backup and one ended it that way.  Blame cannot be placed solely on the system for these results.  To echo my sentiments about Halfthat, this is not acceptable performance from a goalie being paid $6 million per year.

So this my friends is a reeeeeeeeeeeal dicey situation, particular when you consider how many goalies have lost it over the years and never gotten it back.  And while an $18-million albatross hanging from the neck of the franchise for the next three seasons is not necessarily a death sentence (Chicago paid Cristobal Huet $5.6 million to sit on the bench while winning a Cup this past year; Huet's GAA when he was benched? 2.50), it isn't exactly something that can be brushed off either.  If Backstrom can't put 2009-10 behind him and return to an elite level, or (gulp) gets worse, this team is pretty well sunk.

Bottom line: Play competently, re-establish himself as at least a Top 10 goaltender, .920 save % and sub-2.50 GAA is a must

Framing things up - 2 guys who need to step up for the Wild to return to the playoffs

4) Mikko Koivu - If you were looking to define the term "nice player" in the NHL, Mikko Koivu's picture would be on the Wikipedia page.  Solid center, team captain, puts up 20G/40A every season, plays both ends of the ice, good on faceoffs, just a consistent all-around player.  Not spectacular, but certainly not bad, just nice.  Add in the fact that he's being paid a reasonable $3.25 million this season, and Koivu is one of the bright spots on an otherwise bleak rosters.  Problem is, stop me if you've heard this before, he's about to be paid superstar money for production that just doesn't warrant it.

Entering the last year of his contract this season, Koivu is in a good bargaining position for an extension, which seems inevitable before the summer is over.  The Wild can't afford to let their captain and best player walk away for nothing, ala The Slovak Sissy, nor should they.  But they also need to be reasonable in assessing his value, and not overpay ridiculously.  A deal in the $5 million range for Koivu seems likely, and if that is the case, it would be really nice to see him approach the 30-goal mark, or at least top his career high of 22, this season.  It's tough to complain too much about a player who brings as many things to the table as Mikko Koivu does, and it's true that there's more to the game than just scoring.  But last time I checked, the currency of hockey is still goals, and the team that he captains simply needs more of them.

Bottom line: Assuming the other parts of his game remain solid, a bump from the 22G 49A line of last season to 30/50 range should do the job, particulary if most of that increase is on the power play.

5) Pierre-Marc Bouchard - Of all the guys called out so far for underperforming, PMB is probably the biggest example, but also the toughest to blame.  It's been 15 months since Bouchard suffered the concussion that caused him to miss all but one game of the 2009-10 season.  His presence on the ice in September is a wild card that could change many elements of how the team operates this offseason.

At the moment, it appears Bouchard will be returning to the lineup, having just been given clearance to begin working out, following the abatement of the post-concussion symptoms that dogged him all season.  Although he may be a wee little man who's not going to bang in the corners or score many goals, PMB is a gifted playmaker who averaged 45 assists per season in the 3 years prior to his injury during the 2008-09 campaign.  If he's able to go this season, the offense would get a nice shot in the arm; if he's unable to play, the Wild would be free to add his $4 million salary to their pool of available cap space. 

Unfortunately, that doesn't help too much at the moment, for a couple of reasons.  Number one, barring a setback in the very near future, the team has to assume he's going to play, so it can't go spend those dollars on a free agent addition.  Number two, Bouchard is in year 3 of a 5-year deal, so even if he didn't make it back this season, and the cap space became available, the Wild would likely only be able to offer a one-year deal.  With no large contracts falling off the books next offseason, it's unlikely the team would be able to add another $4-5 million salary without putting themselves in a tough spot a year from now.  Anyway, it's probably a moot point, by the time they found out Bouchard was going to sit, all impact free agents would be off the market.

The only thing that's for certain is that his upcoming season is as pivotal to Bouchard's career as it is to the Wild's chances of success.  At only 26, he should be entering his prime as a player, but another head injury would most likely mean the end of what once looked to be a very promising career.

Bottom line: For his sake, as well as the team's, PMB just needs to get healthy and get on the ice, we'll see where things go from there.

Finishing touches - 1 guy who could take the team to the next level

6) Guillaume Latendresse - Ask any Wild fan about the best move of the Chuck Fletcher Era to date, and without fail they will reply "Pouliot-for-Latendresse".  In what looked to be a simple swap of garbage 25 games into last season, the GM shipped the most disatrous Wild draft pick of all time, Benoit Pouliot, to Montreal in exchange for another underachieving young player in Latendresse.  The rest, as they say, is history, as Latendresse scored 25 goals in 55 games to lead the team, and put a small silk head on that pig of a campaign.  Now the question becomes, Trend or Mirage?

It was clear from the jump that Latendresse was a better player than Pouliot, the uber-bust, 4th overall pick from 2005.  In three seasons with Montreal, Latendresse tallied goal totals of 16, 16 and 14, while Pouliot netted 9 total over parts of three with the Wild, and generally stunk in every other phase of the game to boot.  What no one saw coming however, was that Latendresse would start putting pucks in the net at the pace of a 40-goal scorer, showing nifty moves around the net and pretty much carrying the offense for much of the season. 

Now it's probably just the skeptic in me, but despite what I saw happen last season, I just can't believe a 15-goal scorer in the Eastern Conference can transform into a 40-goal scorer in the West simply due to a change of scenery.  While it's true Latendresse has a lot going for him, including size, a cool name, a smoking hot pop star girlfriend and serving as the basis for a great joke I made up (What's do the Minnesota Wild and banging a fat girl have in common?  Latendresse), I just don't think he can equal last year's performance.

I hope I'm wrong, really I do, but something just isn't adding up here.  Maybe he really is the perfect linemate for Halfthat, perhaps his game was being stifled in Montreal, but something in my gut tells me he's closer to the 15-goal guy than the 40-goal guy, and I just can't shake the feeling.  The good news is that the Wild get to find out the answer for a pittance of what they're paying Halfthat to find out what some of us already knew (he's a complementary player).  If Latendresse can do for a full season this year what he did for two-thirds of one the last time out, the ceiling on this team will be raised dramatically.

Bottom line: The X factor, barring some huge improvements from other players, the damage done in the playoffs will hinge on Latendresse emergence as a go-to scorer

In closing, I will simply say that the current state of the Minnesota Wild is bad; that should be obvious at this point.  Furthermore, given the deals that have been handed out, the injury histories of key players on the roster, and the general lack of promising young players in the pipeline, it does not appear likely to improve much in the near future.

Looking at this bleak situation, the one consolation that can be offered is this: These players have done what we need them to do before, and if they do it again, we can win now.  It is never pleasant to go into a season knowing that your only shot at significance is for most of the team to have career/bounce-back years, because as we all know, things rarely work out that way.  But it is far less pleasant to be dealing with a roster of players with no track record, who offer no reason to think they are capable of performing at the level required.

After all, here in Loserville, you gotta have hope.  Go Wild.