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Rinkside Chirps - MN Wild Preseason Recap · Banter with the Boys

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You're listening to banter with the boys talking all things sports from
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betting and brawls, Superball to Stanley Cup finals.
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Get laced up.
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It's time for banter with the boys.
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Hey everybody.
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Welcome back to another episode of banner with the boys.
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Rinkside chirps.
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It'll be our Minnesota wild specific edition.
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I'm your host Kevin.
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I've got my boy Smelty over here as well.
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Unfortunately, Kyle cannot be with us today in this episode.
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He got back from Vegas and isn't feeling too good.
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So we'll let him rest and recoup and we'll have him on for the next one.
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So Tyler, how are we feeling today, buddy?
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Hey, I'm feeling a lot better than Kyle must be feeling.
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I'm sure, you know, Vegas has all sorts of, you know, you don't talk about it, right?
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What happens is Vegas stays in Vegas.
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So he got sick and whatever.
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So we'll move on from that.
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But I'm feeling pretty good.
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Happy to be back on the pod.
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It's been way too long and it's starting to get cold up here in Minnesota.
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So we're starting to get ready for another season of wild hockey.
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So ready to go on that.
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Absolutely. It's going to be a great season.
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The reason we're here talking about Minnesota wild preseason.
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All right. So since we're talking about Minnesota wild preseason, let's go over the overview.
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Any big impressions, disappointments, you know, who made the team, who didn't make the team.
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I'll start things off first.
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Kind of a little bit of a disappointment for me. Smeltzy would be Kaprizov.
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I know it's a hot take.
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But as Kyle used to mention in some of the other episodes that we've had, preseason is full of slappies, right?
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You have a bunch of AHL players, lower league players coming out there.
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And you have Kaprizov, who is really just our stud player, number one guy, our franchise player.
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He got three goals over the course of it.
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I'm not quite sure if he had a couple of assists or none in there.
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I wouldn't be surprised.
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But he only played three games.
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So a goal a game on average, not terrible.
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But I'd like to see a little bit more production out of the stud.
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What do you think?
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So I'm just making sure like you are you fully disappointed in his performance in the preseason?
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No, no, not at all. Let me be clear.
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I am impressed that he was able to get the three goals average a goal a game.
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But with the money we're paying him and just in general, I expected a little bit more.
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I'm not expecting him to get 30 goals in the preseason, but I would expect maybe an extra goal a game,
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maybe a little more couple of helpers, some stuff like that.
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So no, and for sure, I mean, and Krill's a point of game and better than a point of game once we once we hit the season.
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And so I get what you're saying.
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But I there's no way he was going 100 percent.
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You know, we'll just wait till he gets, you know, gets into the regular season.
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Yeah, absolutely. I agree.
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And I think again, I think Kaprizov is he wasn't going 100 percent.
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I think he made a great point there. He wasn't going full board.
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Obviously, you don't want to get banged up in the preseason, especially if you're a stud like that.
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Last thing he is an injury.
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So I don't think he was going full full 100 percent.
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So jumping over the next player that I was actually pretty impressed with was Jujar Kara.
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He came over on a one one year two way deal for just under a million dollars a year.
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I don't know if it was league minimum or just a little under a million bucks a year.
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Do you have a number, Karthik? I do.
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I don't know what the league minimum technically is, but he is under a mill.
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It's going to be. Oh, I'm sorry.
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I looked at the wrong one here. Yes. Seven seventy five. OK.
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I think that's the minimum. OK. So what we do got a couple at seven sixty two.
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But that's like a special circumstance or whatever.
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We're still learning how the contracts work for NHL. Yep, absolutely.
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So I was actually pretty impressed with him.
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I didn't really know much about him coming in. I know he's an older player. He's 29, a little older.
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But hey, he got a you know, he got two goals in the first three games of his preseason career with the Wild.
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Obviously, again, as I mentioned before, you really kind of have this slappy fest out there with with the preseason.
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But for somebody coming in kind of older and getting a couple of goals right away
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and I believe he's got a couple of helpers to I wasn't too upset about that.
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Well, and that's a guy, too, who's going to be a bit cheaper.
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Him and like Vinny Leteri, who's also another vet who got sent down after the preseason.
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You kind of look for some of those guys to maybe bring up some experience.
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And they could be, you know, a guy that's guys that are affordable, you know, that you can bring up.
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You know, in case of an injury or something.
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And they're still going to have a little bit of that NHL experience.
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And since they're on the two ways, you know, you're able to kind of move them around a little bit.
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I know some people want to talk, you know, some Sammy Walker, but he's someone that you could look at bringing up as well.
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However, I think that's more of like a contract issue.
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I'm not I'm not sure if the Wild could actually afford to bring him up right now.
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But, yeah, ultimately, I think it's great to have some of those vets around, especially on the age, L.T.
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Kind of help out the younger guys get prepared for, you know, that next step,
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but also keep the vets loose and ready to go to be called up, you know, in that time of need.
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And I think you made a great point right there.
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I think the big thing for me with that is they are on two deals.
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So when they're in Iowa, when they're out there, they are teaching those guys the leadership and just the way of the NHL lifestyle while at a fraction of the price.
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And I think that experience is almost irreplaceable.
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Right. You've got these stud guys who were out there in the NHL for a while, maybe not the greatest of players out there, but they've got that experience.
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They're older. They can teach these young guys the way.
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So once they get up to the show, if you will, they may be not, you know, maybe won't be as green.
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No pun intended for the Wild, obviously.
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But I think that's good experience.
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And also, to your point, having a cheaper guy who you can call up in an injuries case or have them coming around with the team, I think that's a big deal.
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But also, I think the big thing for the Wild in the preseason is that culture.
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I know with the leaders that they have on the team, they lost Dumba.
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Huge spot in my heart there for losing Dumba.
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But you've got leadership in the group, in the room there.
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Who do you have that's got that leadership experience on the Wild's team to keep the culture going?
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And then also when you have the Iowa Wild, who's down there doing the same thing for them?
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Right. NHL players have a lot of turnover, if you will.
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And I think some of these guys can kind of help bring that culture from the Wild in Minnesota down to Iowa.
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So again, like I said, when they come up, maybe they've got a good idea of what to expect.
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Just real quick, I wanted to touch on the whole Dumba deal.
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I think I'm going to miss Dumba, too.
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And the thing about Dumba is, yes, defensively, it can be rough.
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I think he actually took a step forward defensively last season compared to seasons more recent before that.
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But the thing about Dumba is he can carry the puck up.
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He's kind of an offensive threat.
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And that's why before we decided to not resign Dumba, personally, I would have loved to see him at a wing in a preseason or exhibition style of a match just to see what he can do.
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Is he going to be Brent Burns? No.
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But do I think he could put pucks in the net? Absolutely.
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I think we're going to miss him on power plays.
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That's where maybe Kalen Addison, who's on kind of a prove it deal to show if he's worthy of that bigger deal, that bigger contract.
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I think maybe he could take that spot on the power play, kind of sit in that top of the circles, the Ovechkin area is what I call it, because he sits there and waits for a one timer.
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And that's all Dumba would do.
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He'd kind of slide down in there.
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He slide behind the defense.
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They don't see a boom.
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You know, you at least get a shot on that.
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Absolutely.
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I agree 100 percent.
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I'm a diehard Dumba fan.
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I've got signed jerseys literally about three feet away from me.
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I've got plenty of signed memorabilia and I've been a diehard fan of his for many, many years.
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So super sad to see him go.
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But to your point, you got to think maybe a few years back, we had Brad Hunt, who was a defenseman who actually spent some time as a wing.
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It didn't work out the greatest in his case, but not everybody will in that role.
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However, I'm not mad about that, because to your point, I would have loved to have seen Dumba's offensive game had a chance to go and possibly play wing in an exhibition game or in a preseason game to that capacity.
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Just in case.
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I think it's a good opportunity because he is offensive.
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Was that a regular season game that Brad Hunt played at wing or was it?
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There was multiple.
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It was multiple regular season games.
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They had him do both.
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I'm not remembering that.
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How many games do you think he played at wing?
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If you had to.
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I know it's a couple of years ago.
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If he had to guess.
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Easily a half dozen or something five or six.
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What the hell they had him in for a while.
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They could have easily have thrown Dumba in there as a wing spot.
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I again being a diehard Dumba fantasy, all the hate in the comments and stuff like that.
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A lot of people were actually pretty impressed with his offensive ability when he actually didn't turn over the puck.
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I think a lot of people recommended that he get a shot at the wing spot.
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So unfortunately, with him being gone, we'll never know what could have been.
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But the offensive prowess that Dumba had that a lot of people hated him for, I think might have paid dividends and an opportunity at a wing.
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I can't believe if you heard something in the distance, I threw my hat on the ground because I can't remember and I'm a big Wilde fan, but I can't remember Brad Hunt playing wing.
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So it's crazy you bring that up because just I out of all the other defensemen we had that you could have tried at wing, you're going to choose Brad Hunt, bro.
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And no offense to Brad Hunt.
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I actually liked him when he was here as a D man.
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He reminds me a little bit of John Merrill.
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No, that's a tough one.
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Again, I'm a diehard Dumba fan.
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I'm super sad to see him go.
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But one more guy that made some moves here in the preseason would have been Sammy Walker.
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He played four games, netted two goals, two assists, and people are wondering, well, where the heck is Sammy Walker?
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Why is he still in Iowa?
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Unfortunately, I think it's going to be the biggest problem is I don't think we can afford him.
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Right.
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And we'll get into some contract stuff here in a second with other players.
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But with everything we got going on, I just I don't think we can afford him.
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And so now the question is, OK, well, Sammy Walker's on the last year of his entry level deal.
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He's a restricted free agent next season.
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What is he worth?
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Like, what do we you know, if you had to come off the top of your head, Kev, what do you think he's worth?
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I have I have I have my number.
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Here's what your number is.
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It depends, right. He doesn't have any experience, really.
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It's a ton of it. He may have a couple of games here and there randomly.
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I don't think he does.
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But it'd be really difficult to put a true number on him.
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But I'd say especially with the contract issues that we have, maybe a two for two deal, two years, couple million a year, maybe a million, you know, a little under two just for a couple, possibly a little bit longer of a deal.
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If he's willing to to stretch the deal out, maybe go two and a half for three, maybe.
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I put Sammy Walker in a very similar place as Adam Beckman last season.
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Last preseason, Adam Beckman was a stud.
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I don't remember the exact number of points and stuff that he had last year, but he didn't make a team and he was just a rock star.
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He didn't make the squad.
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He got sent back down to Iowa, but also did very well in Iowa.
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So I put I put them in a similar boat.
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Do I think Sammy is worth a million bucks a year?
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Possibly, but you got to get him a couple of games to see what you think.
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It's too small of a sample size.
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It really is.
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Guess who also also is the RFA next year?
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Tommy.
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Beckman.
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So so they're going to have they're going to have to figure out some stuff next year.
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And whether that is trading some of our veteran guys we just signed, maybe to a contender to clear cap space to sign some of our younger guys to be ready to go in two years when we lose the suitors.
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And freezy contracts, which do you know how much a year they're actually garnering?
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No, is it quite a lot?
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I'm sure.
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Right.
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Oh, yeah, it's seven point three mil apiece.
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So, I mean, we're we're talking like fourteen point seven, which actually takes up about seventeen point seven percent of our current cap right now, which we don't have much of in the first place.
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Then you just give away almost 20 percent of your money to dead space.
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But you clear the locker room of the problems that they were causing and just a new culture.
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I'm not mad about it, but it's killing us.
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So now, obviously, we're at the point to where we have resigned players in the past, I think, couple weeks.
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I know one of them is very fresh, but the other two were maybe a week or two ago.
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Marcus Foligno at four million year Ryan Harmon at four million year and Zuccarello at four point one a year.
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What do you think about that right off the bat?
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You know what? A lot of players, a lot of people are not happy with those numbers.
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They say some of them are overpaid.
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But to be honest with you, I'm a big Foligno fan.
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I love Moose.
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Four million at four years on that one.
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A good bit of money when you think about the money that we have.
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Three years at four mil.
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He's got one more year this year at three point one and then it's three years of four mil after that.
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Got it. My apologies. Thank you for the correction there.
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So I'm not mad about that.
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And a lot of players, a lot of people look at the players production on the ice as what they go basing off of their opinions, off of what they see the production wise.
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But I'm a little different and I think you might be in the same boat of players play.
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They produce on the ice.
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But also, what do they bring to the locker room?
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What do they bring to the team's culture?
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What do they bring to the bench?
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What do they bring to that?
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You know, in those different facets, that to me, I think is a lot.
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And then seeing last year Dumbab and Foligno had the A's on their chest.
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Foligno still has his.
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I think it's a testament.
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Obviously, you can always strip an A from somebody.
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You can always give it to somebody else.
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But seeing Foligno get a nice little pay increase for a couple of years on top of that, he still wears the A on his chest.
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I think that's a big testament.
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A lot of players for Zuccarello's contract.
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I think he's just here to appease Kaprizov before his contract's over.
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I believe he's a UFA after his contract's done.
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But at the end of the day, I think Garen even said in an interview with Russo, he signed Zuccarello for Zuccarello for his production and his abilities.
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I think it's a good deal.
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Hartman, four million bucks for three years.
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Garen also said in an interview with Russo that Hartman took a pay cut last time he had a deal or a contract signing.
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He took a pay cut.
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I don't know what the numbers were for that pay cut, but I'm impressed that he was able to stick it out.
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I feel like a lot of times if a player does take a pay cut, they may not see the green grass on the other side when that contract negotiation comes around.
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So is it a lot of money over the next few years when we don't have a lot to spend?
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Yes.
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But does Hartman, for his number one producing year, one of his best producing years for us recently, on top of that for Felinos off the ice and on the ice presence, do those make sense?
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Does Garen have the wages that they're going to be getting?
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I think so.
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And Zuccarello, does his production stack up with the, was it two years at 4.1?
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I think being on the line with Kaprizov, as long as they can find their chemistry again that they used to have, I think those numbers are fair.
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Yeah, like you were saying earlier, it's about stuff that doesn't have a stat.
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So for me it's Ryan Hartman and Felino.
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When you go to a wild game, these guys are out there pumping up the crowd, getting amped, they're bringing the energy, right?
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And when you see veterans doing that, it's just going to ignite the young guys.
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They want to follow that now.
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I know it sounds cliche, but it's a fact.
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And these three guys, they're bridge players.
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They get us through these next two years of Souter and Parisi.
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I know people may say it's a lot of money for a couple of these guys, but at the same time, okay, that's your option.
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You sign a couple vets, you stay competitive, you probably make the playoffs.
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I'm not saying we're a cup contender, but you probably make the playoffs.
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If you just rock your young guys and call up all of the Iowa Wild right now, yes, they're going to get great experience.
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They're going to get really good experience.
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But we're not hitting the playoffs those two years, you know?
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So that's kind of what we're looking at.
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And you touched on Coril being a UFA 2026, 2027.
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Our boy Kyle, who's not here with us today, he had a pretty wild take saying that the Wild will be signing Leon Dreisaitl
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in those years.
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So after Parisi and Souter are gone, you heard it here first from Kyle, not me.
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Or not from me either.
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Not from Kev.
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So if you're frustrated about it, comment on our Facebook, whatever you got to do to come at Kyle, that's fine.
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You know, he's not going to like that too much that I just mentioned that, but that's all right.
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So Leon Dreisaitl to the Wild in what, four years?
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We'll see what happens, right?
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And moving on here to our next segment of the episode, we're going to talk about Between the Pipes.
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We had three different goaltenders that made an appearance in the Minnesota Wilds preseason.
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Philip Gustafson, Jesper Wollstedt, and of course, Mark Andre Fleury.
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Let's take a second and talk about each one.
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I'll start off here quickly with Jesper Wollstedt.
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One game played in the preseason.
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I wish we would have gotten a little bit more experience and whatnot, but I'm okay with it.
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A pretty good showing out though.
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43 shots against, 43 saves.
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So he had three goals against, which isn't terrible.
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Equated to a 0.93 save percentage.
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Now looking at the rest of the goaltenders, except for Gustafson's shutout last night,
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he had the second winningest percentage of the preseason by 0.001.
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Mark Andre Fleury in game five had a 0.931 to Gustaf, or excuse me, to Jesper Wollstedt's 0.930.
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It is one game here.
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You're talking save percentage, right?
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That's correct. My apologies.
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It's all good.
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Yeah.
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So looking at the stats there, I was impressed.
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43 shots is a lot to go off of, especially in the show, if you will.
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Wollstedt spent most of his time, if not all of his time, in different leagues,
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especially obviously in the Iowa Wild.
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So coming up to the show and getting a game, 43 shots against.
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As Kyle always says, the slappies are in the preseason, which I do agree with,
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but obviously some big players do make their appearance and do put some good shots on net.
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Going on to the next one here, we've got Mark Andre Fleury, of course,
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the seasoned veteran, the multi Stanley Cup-winning champion here.
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Smelsey, what do you think about Fleury?
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Well, first off, I just want to mention Jesper, too.
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He is 20 years old, so we have time with him.
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A lot of Wild fans want to hurry up, move him up, get flower out of here,
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and just start running with Jesper.
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It's not time for that yet.
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We're close, but it's not time for that yet, so I just pump the brakes.
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But as far as Fleury goes, I love Mark Andre Fleury.
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I think he's a Hall of Fame goaltender.
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The thing about Fleury that bugs me a little bit is his play style, right?
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Everybody remembers, you know, most NHL fans can remember some crazy save
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that Fleury's made in his long career.
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The issue is he puts himself in those situations where he has to scramble
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to get back in position to make a save, and now it looks crazy.
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That's my thing with Fleury. I love Fleury, again.
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But you saw it last year a lot.
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He was out of position.
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He'd hurry up, get into position at the last second, make a crazy save.
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It looks really amazing. Everybody loves him.
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But, dude, you're making that save because you're out of position.
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He's scramblein', to your point.
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He likes to go for the acrobatics, I believe is what Lepenta and those announcer guys say.
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And he's probably the best at it right now in the NHL, I would say.
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As far as, like, what do they want to call that?
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Recovery save or whatever you want to call it, he's probably one of the best at it.
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But it's because he's out of position to begin with, right?
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Another thing with Fleury is last year, I mean, we were seeing wrist shots taken from the top of the circles,
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and he just didn't see it on glove side. Just didn't see it.
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It just goes right over it.
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I just...I love Fleury, but it's coming to an end.
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You know, as you bring up Gus here in a little bit, I think Gus is going to be our number one.
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I don't know. I don't know. What's your thoughts on Flower?
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Yeah, let's talk about him real quick.
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So obviously, like I mentioned, he's got a couple of cups under his belt.
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I'm not quite sure the exact number of cups he's got.
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But I know for a fact that he's a Hall of Fame goaltender, to your point.
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I agree with you 100%.
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What he's done with the league and is over his tenured career, I'm very impressed with.
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Looking at his last season, I agree with you 100%, Smell and C.I.
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I really do think that he's out of position more often than he's not.
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I think that, to your point, does kind of give you some of that acrobatics, some of that kind of flair, if you will.
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The scramble saves, they make for good entertainment.
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But from a basic goalie 101 perspective, obviously I'm not a goaltending coach by any means.
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But it would make more sense for you to stay home and stay in the net versus do some crazy wild stuff and potentially be out of place, giving up some chances or potentially hurting yourself on some weird acrobatics.
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Yeah, and just to recap quick on Flurry's accomplishments as far as being a Hall of Fame goaltender, we do have, he's a three-time Stanley Cup champion.
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He's made five All-Star games.
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He's on the NHL's All-Decade First Team.
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You know, he won the Vezna.
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The dude's going to the Hall of Fame.
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So there's no question about that.
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And final goaltender to talk about here, Smell C., Philip Gustafson.
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Coming off the final game of the preseason shutout, he faced 22 shots against, obviously led in none of them with a shutout.
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I was pretty impressed.
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Looking at the total stats for the goaltenders between Marc-Andre Flurry and Philip Gustafson.
21:46
Cross the numbers and technically Marc-Andre Flurry beats Gustafson in save percentage for the preseason.
21:53
Marc-Andre Flurry had a.899 average against his, across his, what was it, three games?
21:58
And then same thing for Gus, three games, but at a.849 average.
22:02
But was Gus's last game was the shutout, right?
22:05
That was last night?
22:06
That was correct.
22:07
So he started out weak, but he got stronger as preseason progressed and he got more playing time.
22:14
Yeah, Smell C., you're 100% right.
22:16
He definitely got better as the, as the preseason went on.
22:18
So first game for Gus, a.727.
22:22
Second game for Gus,.913.
22:24
And then the final game obviously was a shutout.
22:26
Look at Flurry, first game,.870.
22:30
Second game for Flurry was a.926.
22:32
And then Flurry at the final game of the preseason was a.931.
22:36
So both goaltenders showed improvement over the preseason, which I think is obviously the point of it, right?
22:40
You knock the rust off, you get some shots under your belt.
22:43
Obviously practice is one thing, preseason is another.
22:46
So who are you starting then?
22:48
Who's your number one tendy between the two?
22:51
Number one between the two, I'm going to go with Gus.
22:53
I think Gus is the man.
22:55
To your point, I worry that Flurry is a little out there.
22:59
I want to see Gus get a fair shake.
23:02
I don't know the numbers specifically for how many games he played last year against Flurry,
23:06
but I feel like Gus, had he gotten more games and more games in a row, might have been a little bit better off.
23:12
But seeing his improvement in the preseason, especially going up against, it was Dallas last night,
23:17
it was their, pretty much their full roster, getting a shutout in that, I'm impressed by that.
23:24
What about you?
23:25
Yeah, I think we're right on the same page.
23:27
I think Gus has earned the starting spot at this point.
23:32
There was a couple games last year, after a couple games, excuse me, where I'm just like, we're starting Flurry again, dude.
23:38
You got to give him a break, get Gus in there, get him on a roll.
23:42
You know what I mean?
23:43
It's like we're almost scared to pull Flurry, you know?
23:47
And we just can't be, you know?
23:49
I get it, but I think Gus is my number one.
23:54
So a thing for you though, for the first game of the season, are you aware of the history that Flower could make on the first game?
24:02
I am.
24:03
And that's the only, that's the hard part, because when you're a head coach, what do you care more about?
24:10
Somebody setting a record and potentially getting his name in a record book somehow?
24:16
Or do you care about the performance and the start to the season?
24:22
So you want to win game one, right?
24:25
You want to win game one.
24:26
There's only 82 of them things.
24:28
You want to win game one.
24:30
But as we've seen, like last year, Flurry kind of got worse as the season went on, right?
24:38
So if the beginning of the season is the best Flurry's going to be for the season, you might as well start him, right?
24:44
Give him the opportunity.
24:45
Everybody knows the history that could be made, which if you don't know, he could, you know, if we start Flurry and he wins,
24:53
he would be the winningest goalie on opening days over, I'm sorry, who was it?
24:59
I just had it in my brain.
25:01
Let me just think here real quick.
25:03
He would have the win, the most wins on opening day over Martin Broder and Curtis Joseph both.
25:10
So I think you just kind of let him buck.
25:13
But I think as we move on through the season, Gus is the bona fide number one starter.
25:18
Flurry's an older guy.
25:19
I mean, that's not fault him for, you know, being alive for a while.
25:23
But when you're, when you're in the league for so long, it takes a toll on your body.
25:27
I mean, how many injuries has he gone through?
25:29
How many times is, you know, do we have to potentially worry about sitting him just to get a little bit of a rest or a break or something like that?
25:36
And when you're thinking, in my opinion, for a starting goaltender, who do you put in?
25:41
You put the young buck in there who fresh off of a shutout or do you put in the older veteran who's who's potentially going to make history?
25:48
But also his his previous record show, he starts off hot in the beginning of the season.
25:52
It's a tough one, but sounds like we're both saying Gus.
25:55
Yeah, I would agree.
25:56
I think Gus is our our number one tendy this season.
25:59
I agree 100 percent.
26:03
Last, but certainly not least, we've covered a ton in this episode.
26:08
I think it's best we talk about the predictions for next season, or excuse me, for this upcoming season.
26:14
I think the while looking at the records in the past years, seeing who we've got on the roster, seeing what we have in the pipes,
26:19
I'm predicting a 48 win, 26 loss and 8 OCL record for this season with, unfortunately, yet again, another first round playoff exit.
26:30
I don't see us, unfortunately, beating that curse.
26:33
Some of the twins just beat their curse.
26:34
Maybe it's time for the wild.
26:36
But looking at how things have gone, looking at the stats and the players that we've got in the roster, I just I worry about the wilds ability to push through that.
26:44
But also just like you got to deal with injuries throughout the season.
26:47
Not everyone's going to be healthy.
26:48
You knock on wood, everyone makes it hunky dory throughout the season.
26:52
No injuries, no problems.
26:53
But like you said, 82 of them things, man.
26:56
There's a lot of hockey to play.
26:58
And I worry about everyone's ability to stay healthy.
27:00
Speaking of healthy, you got Spurgeon out right now, start the season.
27:03
No one knows how long it's going to go for.
27:04
And I worry that not having our number one defenseman with our captain out, I think that might put a little toll on some things.
27:12
Smellsy?
27:13
Guess who needs to step up now, though, on the D line?
27:16
Addison.
27:17
Addison's getting that he's going to get that opportunity early with Spurgeon being technically week to week.
27:23
So we don't even know.
27:25
We might have we might be talking about him next weekend back in the lineup and we may not be.
27:29
We don't know yet.
27:31
So I think your prediction as far as the season goes isn't that far off.
27:36
I could I could see give or take a couple of wins, probably take.
27:40
I could see us maybe 45 wins.
27:44
But I do think we make the playoffs, but I agree with you.
27:47
I think it's a first round exit.
27:48
However, I will say if we make the playoffs this season and next season with still dealing with 14 mil of of dead money, I think I think that's a win.
27:59
You know what I mean?
28:00
Like most people are probably planning on us not to even make the playoffs these next two years and then maybe make a move after that when all of our young guys are now becoming vets at that point.
28:11
And I think you're right.
28:12
I think if we can make it to this next couple of years and show some results, I think it's a testament to what we can do here and what the Wild is able to do.
28:19
And obviously a big plus one thumbs up high five knuckles to Bill Guerin.
28:24
I mean, it just proves that the way of the Guerin is working.
28:28
I think he just recently got a promotion in this offseason as the president of hockey operations or something to that effect on top of being the GM.
28:35
So I think the ownership of the Wild is really putting in their faith in their stock in Guerin.
28:42
I think the next couple of seasons are really going to be the proof in the pudding if we can make you know, make a run going forward.
28:49
Obviously, I'd love to see some more wins in there and obviously be a cup contending team.
28:54
Who knows, right?
28:55
You never know what it's truly going to be.
28:56
We could just have an absolute spark of a season and just go crazy.
28:59
Look at Florida.
29:00
I did not see Florida going to the Stanley Cup finals last year.
29:04
They were decent, right?
29:05
Don't get me wrong.
29:06
We knew they were going to be decent, but I didn't think they're going to make a deep run like that.
29:10
I think they surprised a lot of people.
29:11
Carolina, another surprise, you know, who knows?
29:15
We could be a surprise in the next two years.
29:17
We got to think about what other thing about the playoffs last year.
29:21
How many teams that you typically expect to be in the playoffs and make a final run?
29:26
We're still in the in the runnings for things.
29:28
I feel like a lot of the better teams got the boot or didn't make the playoffs, lost the first round of the playoffs and really kind of let it open to whoever was playing at the time.
29:37
And obviously, the wild didn't fare as well as we would expect against Dallas.
29:41
But who knows?
29:42
I hope this season is a testament to what Garen's doing here, what he's looking for in the future.
29:48
I think his big thing is stop trading away all of our good picks.
29:51
Build from within, which is kind of what we alluded to earlier on in the episode here of raising the team
29:56
and building them up in the Iowa and the farm system.
29:58
And I think we keep doing that.
30:01
We're going to be all right.
30:02
And you're handcuffed for two years anyway.
30:04
You might as well let the young players develop in Iowa, bring them up as you see fit or as you can afford like we alluded to earlier.
30:11
And you just kind of go from there.
30:14
You know, I'm excited to see what the season is going to bring.
30:17
We're going to be here all season with you guys.
30:20
Yeah, that's that's all I got to say about the matter.
30:23
Yeah, no, I agree. I think this is going to be a great season for us.
30:26
It's obviously going to have some up and downs.
30:28
We are the Minnesota Wild, right?
30:29
We are a Minnesota sports team.
30:30
So right now, prepare for the roller coaster.
30:32
But as you guys know, we're going to be here all season.
30:35
So we'll be right in the front of the roller coaster with you guys there, arms up, hoping for the best.
30:39
So with that, thank you guys all so much for listening.
30:43
We really do appreciate your time.
30:44
Please feel free to share, like and subscribe and all the major channels that you see this on.
30:48
And keep an eye out for some other episodes that we're going to be working on in this podcast season coming up.
30:54
We'll have our NFL podcast coming back and possibly some more F1 content.
30:57
And a lot of you guys love the F1 stuff.
30:59
So we may bring that back.
31:01
So time will tell.
31:02
But thank you again for listening.
31:04
We'll catch you in the next one.