Posted by The Minnesota Wild doesn’t score much. So you’ll excuse Wild fans if an offensive outburst like the one the team has produced this off-season has taken their breath away.
Out with head coach Jacques Lemaire – 11 rings.
Out with GM Doug Risebrough – 5 rings.
Out with assistant coach Mario Tremblay – 5 rings.
Out with assistant GM Tom Lynn.
In with GM Chuck Fletcher – a rookie GM.
In with head coach Todd Richards – a rookie NHL head coach.
And that’s all in less than four weeks. That such a massive overhaul was needed is both not in question and moot. That the overhaul has been so comprehensive and in such a concentrated period of time is what is thrilling to Wild fans. Many Wild fans have been saying that this is as excited about the future of the team as they’ve been in a long time. That alone is a win for owner Craig Leipold – whose ability to accurately take the pulse of his constituents has to be admired right now. But, when you layer in the style of play (aggressive, up-tempo, forechecking as a five-man unit) that both the GM and the head coach espouse, Wild fans sort of don’t know what to do with themselves, so giddy are they with anticipation.
That being said, employing such a style of play still doesn’t mean they can do so successfully. Who’s going to carry the mail in this new system? Where are the goals going to come from? It’s great they want Nick Schultz to activate and join the rush, but is he really going to produce 10 goals and 40 points? Is Miettinen really just a new system away from being a consistent offensive threat? And that’s not even considering the Gaborik situation. If you just dropped last year’s roster into this new system, you would realize very quickly that the Wild has a roster of pluggers. Luckily, that won’t happen (several contracts expiring) but the point is salient: Fletcher still has his work cut out for him.
The bottom line is the Wild doesn’t have the offensive skill to win a 5-4 game with any consistency at all. Will Wild fans come to decide that boring wins are better than exciting losses? That’s hard to say. While it’s hard to imagine anyone walking out of the X after a 6-4 barnburner against the Flames in mid-February saying “at least that was exciting!” (we are Minnesotans, afterall) it’s just as hard to imagine people will be saying “God I wish Lemaire was still coach.”
And perhaps it’s that exact uncertainty that Fletch is hoping to be able to exploit. Perhaps he’s comfortable putting out a more-exciting product that garners higher draft picks for the next couple years. Is that the worst thing in the world?
Meanwhile, it’s onto the draft and we’ll see if Fletch is able to start being active in the trade market as it has been implied is his desire.
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