The offseason continues, and so do the Minnesota Wild report cards. Connor Dewar and Brandon Duhaime were the most recent recipients, which means next up is one of the centers on that line, Vinni Lettieri. He is a Minnesota native with a famous grandpa in the hockey world, Lou Nanne. During the season, Nanne made the call on his grandson’s first goal in a Wild jersey, which made for a very special memory for them both.
Before his time in his home state, Lettieri played for various other teams, including the New York Rangers, Anaheim Ducks, and Boston Bruins. While he had trouble finding his game over the seasons, he had started to find success with the Wild. Since they missed the postseason, this grade will reflect his regular season performance. We’ll take a look at a rough part of his game, a strong part, and give him an overall grade based on that. To start, we’ll look at the difficult area of his game.
Lettieri Needs Consistent Confidence
Over the years, Lettieri has shown that he’s not a big scorer, but lately, he has shown that he can find ways to score goals and assist on them. However, he struggled to do so consistently, as his points were spread out throughout the season and not in a streak of games. He needs to be more confident in his abilities and show what he’s able to do.
He’s a quick skater with strong puck-handling skills that he can use to score more goals if he’d be more confident. He played in 46 games for the Wild and had five goals plus four assists for nine points. He missed a good chunk of the season due to a broken foot, but when he returned, he assisted on two goals but that quickly disappeared.
Outside of being more confident, one minor area that could improve is on the defensive end in his blocked shots. He had 27 blocked shots in his 46 games, and while that’s a decent number, it should be more, especially for someone who’s used on the penalty kill as well. His blocks aren’t a huge issue, but he should definitely try for more this coming season.
Lettieri Can Score
While Lettieri does need to work on his confidence to be able to score consistently, he has proven he can score goals and that he has the talent to do so. When Lettieri joined the Wild, many weren’t so confident he should be in the lineup, but he showed his abilities and he had some hidden speed that wasn’t seen much before. When paired with the right linemates, he did quite well.
He wasn’t given a lot of ice time, which could’ve contributed to his fewer points, but he kept playing hard every chance he had. Being on the fourth line, he’s a big hitter, not as much as his linemates because he is on the smaller side and has had injuries, but he still had 53 hits on the season. Despite all those hits, he managed to keep his penalty minutes on the lower side, with just 24 minutes in penalties.
Lettieri may have struggled to score consistently, but he also found a way to average nearly a shot per game with 47 shots. He definitely could’ve taken more, but with his minimal time on ice, he did what he could with his time.
Lettieri’s Overall Grade
Clearly, Lettieri had some confidence struggles throughout the season that affected his offensive side, but he leveled that out with his stronger defensive game. He also battled back from a broken foot and played well when he returned. However, the Wild still missed the postseason, and they could’ve used more from Lettieri since he proved he could score.
Related: Wild Report Cards 2023-24: Brandon Duhaime
After looking over his stats, he earned a C-. His stats were okay, and while they weren’t great, they weren’t horrible either. His season was very average and slightly worse because his team missed the postseason when they could’ve made it. His grade wasn’t higher because he could’ve done better, but on the other hand, his grade wasn’t lower because he could’ve done worse as well.
It’ll be interesting to see what Lettieri can do this coming season, as he will no longer play for the Wild. He ended up going back to the Bruins in an offseason trade for Jakub Lauko and a fourth-round pick swap for this past draft. Lettieri is getting another fresh start, and hopefully, he can show what he can do more consistently.
