Wild Roundup

When it comes to the Wild, the team is very well covered by Michael Russo of the Star Tribune as well as Bruce Brothers of the Pioneer Press. The Wild's website also has great reads, so when focusing on the Wild I'll be offering some opinion and thoughts, but leaving the reporting to the pros and linking you to the stories.

What I am looking for this year with the regime change are a few things that irked me from years past:

1. Youth. I felt that Lemaire was to tough on young players and didn't give them enough time during games to develop as impact players. His philosophy seemed to be to limit their playing time because they didn't have the experience and lacked the ability to pay attention to details. I think by letting them play, make a few mistakes and grow from them would have served the long term interests for the Wild much better. It drives me crazy to see how every other team in the league develops a rookie each year and eventually that player becomes a core player. It's been a while since Minnesota has done that.
   
2. Boogaard. Great character. Great fighter. Crowd favorite. But nobody will fight him. I think given enough ice time Gillies would be a much more effective forchecker and can actually score and create scoring chances. Now my big fear is coming true and that is that the new coach Todd Richards may like Boogaard more than Lemaire did.
   
3. Line consistency. I really hope that they can formulate consistent lines. It's amazing how nice it is to play with the same guys game after game. Yes, mix it up in slumps, but Lemaire's system was just a way to execute control over his team.

Star Tribune on Todd Richards

Star Tribune on Olympic hopefuls on Wild Roster

Pioneer Press on the return of Brent Burns

Pioneer Press on Todd Richards

Wild.com on James Sheppard