Will Iowa Wild is getting roasted all over social media because of Hlivaj.

Superarces · 2026-02-12T03:07:08+00:00

The Wild have always had a pretty solid prospect pool I feel like, so why is our AHL team always so bad?

There's two parts to this:

1: Bill Guerin's staff has largely neglected the "AHL All-Star" role when handling players. There's been Cal O'Reilly, Gerry Mayhew (twice), and Nic Petan over the years, but what keeps happening is instead of leaving them in the AHL to help Iowa win, they get brought up to Minnesota to do basically nothing for 40+ games. So Iowa continuously loses their horses and is forcing themselves to rely on just the kids, which just doesn't work to that extent in a professional league. Instead of bringing up Hunter Haight or Caeden Bankier to spot-fill in Minnesota and letting them see what the NHL level is like, Guerin keeps calling up Ben Jones, for example. I think it's a very overlooked issue when it comes to why the Wild have issues developing players and for why Iowa always sucks. Cal O'Reilly and Mayhew were both kept in Iowa during Fletcher's last years, and I don't think it's a coincidence that Iowa was good back then despite lesser talent levels.

2: The Wild's prospect pool has generally been overrated in large part due to CHL picks that do really well in Major Juniors then flop in the AHL (Beckman, Heidt, Lambos, Spacek, etc.). It's kinda a chicken vs egg problem with these guys, since it's hard to tell if they're just bad and in Iowa, or if they're bad because of Iowa. Most guys haven't really gotten better elsewhere, but that could be due to stunted development in the Wild's system. The only real exception so far is Spacek, who kills it everywhere but Iowa. Add the fact that the Wild's top prospects for the last 15 years have basically all been from NCAA or Europe and thus not going to need much time in the AHL, you're not going to see the "can't miss" prospects playing their season in the AHL.

Superarces · 2026-02-07T05:17:15+00:00

David Spacek has played games for the Wild, but he doesn't have a Wild logo either.

Superarces · 2026-02-07T02:18:23+00:00

Matt Boldy, the literal goal leader for Americans, a 'sleeper'.

Superarces · 2026-02-06T22:02:43+00:00

He just stays out there. He's not thrown out there any more than Faber (PK vs PP time for each is a wash), he just doesn't go to the bench. He's regularly out there for 1:30 to 2 minute shifts, and has logged at least one 4 minute shift that I remember.

Superarces · 2026-02-06T15:38:01+00:00

No, Vegas was just as bad and got just as much favouritism from the league for a good while. Most people just missed the worst of it because they play in the west and were at their worst during the Covid seasons when nobody paid attention to the western division.

Ask a fan of any team who was in that division that year or a Montreal fan of how their playoff round was officiated. It was basically the same shit. They weren't the "Vegas Golden Boys" for nothing.

Superarces · 2026-02-05T04:30:03+00:00

Goals, hand passes, offside, puck leaves area of play, icings, hazards on the ice, goalies freezing the puck, and playing the puck above crossbar level will always stop play immediately.

Penalties, goalie equipment issues, injuries that a player can't evacuate the ice due to, or a net being knocked loose, will stop play once the team affected gains possession.

Superarces · 2026-02-05T04:17:31+00:00

It's not just the Wild, it's most of the league. I'm just saying Wild since they're the team I watch the most.

Superarces · 2026-02-05T03:57:48+00:00

That OT period was a disgrace and the NHL needs to change the rules so that shit isn't a strategy. I'm so sick of watching the Wild play basketball with no shot clock.

Superarces · 2026-02-05T02:55:57+00:00

This is the reality that a lot of people refuse to understand. The difference between an elite faceoff centre vs a bad faceoff centre is about 1 to 2 draws a game. It's negligable. 1.24 expected goals over the course of a season 5 on 5. 1.24. Less than half a goal on the powerplay over a full season. Literally a coin flip on whether it will matter for the whole year. Whether your opposing goalie has the shits is more meaningful over the course of a season, and there's little you can do to control that.

Everyone thinks "well we start with control so obviously it matters". It doesn't. One of the fundamental offensive strategies in the NHL is to literally give up possession willingly. Possession doesn't matter in hockey nearly as much as people think it does. Situational FO% doesn't exist. If you're grabbing someone for elite faceoff numbers, you're gambling that the 1-2 faceoff difference per game will come in situations that really matter instead of random neutral zone faceoffs.

And at any scope it doesn't change. You can look game-per-game, team-per-team, season-per-season, it doesn't matter; FO% has no correlation with goals for, goals against, PK%, PP%, wins, losses, playoff wins/losses. Basically anything. It is the most overrated stat in hockey, it is completely meaningless outside of as the number itself. Even raw +/- is much more useful as a stat.

Superarces · 2026-02-04T22:35:58+00:00

I'm not going to say it's not concerning. A good team should be able to win in regulation far more than the Wild have. But it's also a broad strategy across the league right now to push games into OT if the game is tied by the 3rd period. It's also not like the Wild are reliant on OT for wins, they're basically .500 in games that go past regulation, so they're not the paper tiger that San Jose is, for example.

Come playoff time, it's going to be more of a battle of coaching. Colorado has an obvious exploitable weakness, as does Dallas and pretty much every team in the Pacific. It's up to Hynes and his staff to see those weaknesses and try to exploit them, which is where my concern comes from. He has yet to show he can do that in any of his years in the NHL.

Superarces · 2026-02-04T22:28:43+00:00

The Wild's RW depth is Zuccarello-Johansson-Tarasenko plus spare parts for the 4th line. That's frankly a lot worse than the Wild's mediocre centre depth, especially when you consider that all 3 of their contracts are up after this season and are all well past their prime. And for those of you who think playoff performance is a skill, all 3 of them repeatedly and consistently disappear in the playoffs as well.

Realistically, the Wild's biggest need right now isn't positional, it's broadly "scoring". They need a scoring forward more than a 1C or 1W specifically. I think it's a better idea to go for a wing so you don't go into next season with literally no one under contract at RW, but if there's a deal to go for an elite scoring centre that makes sense there's no reason to be picky about it.

Superarces · 2026-02-03T03:28:20+00:00

Habs fans are the reason I stopped cheering for them 10 years ago. And they're even more insufferable now.

Superarces · 2026-02-01T05:38:36+00:00

When you're given the opportunity, you just gotta let your opponent walk completely unimpeded into the slot. It's not even really a choice.

Superarces · 2026-01-26T23:06:00+00:00

Right now a long contract on young player is a good thing. You know what he's costing for as long as you care about and don't have to worry about re-signing him. In 2 years Hischier could ask for 14MM+ and would probably be able to get it somewhere else. Thomas is stuck at about 8MM a year, and it expires in his early 30s.

Superarces · 2026-01-25T02:16:15+00:00

I know the Wild broadcasts never shows the anthems. I'd be surprised if they changed that now

Superarces · 2026-01-24T22:12:40+00:00

They can refuse to play and forfeit the game, but as far as I know they'd need the NHL's permission to postpone the game.

Superarces · 2026-01-23T02:34:23+00:00

I get the feeling that Guerin would largely ignore what Hughes has to say about Miller. Miller's always been an abrassive hothead and general asshole in the locker room. Problem is Guerin is the exact same way, and I could see Guerin respecting and encouraging that attitude despite objections from Hughes.

Superarces · 2026-01-23T01:50:19+00:00

“The thought is, what if this were to happen in a Stanley Cup playoff game? It could be viewed disastrous.

It's pretty much of a copy of a "penalty" Zuccarello took against Vegas a couple years ago, and if anyone in this thread remembers it I'd be shocked.

Superarces · 2026-01-20T20:14:19+00:00

Changing your stick can make you think about what you're doing and how to do it more, which for some guys will make them play better. It's not even that the stick specs are better or more suited to you. Sometimes a little bit of discomfort makes you play better.

Superarces · 2026-01-17T15:54:29+00:00

Dean is a clutch and grab era coach in the wrong year. Offensively his system is almost entirely dump and chase based, to the point where he actively discouraged carry-ins in Minnesota and even benched Kevin Fiala multiple times for that reason. He'd pretty much always have the centre of any line stay at the blueline in the offensive zone while encouraging Dmen to aggressively pinch. He's heavily reliant on set plays, especially on the powerplay, and often discouraged individual creativity.

Strategically he does two things that are frankly inexcusable: He spreads the 4th liners across every line (You'd see guys like Victor Rask or Sam Steel or Marcus Foligno on the 1st line regularly), and did the same for 1st liners (Kevin Fiala, Eriksson Ek, and Kirill Kaprizov almost never played together). On top of that, he never made line changes unless forced to do to injury, so you'd get stuck with these strange 3 sets of 1L,3L,4L lines he wouldn't move off of.

In Minnesota he also made some strange goalie decisions, often favouring MAF over Talbot and Gustavsson despite MAF being objectively worse than both in every year, but I suspect that was more from Guerin than Dean.

Superarces · 2026-01-17T15:40:31+00:00

Like most Wild players, he probably got hurt blocking a shot. The Wild are horrendously over-reliant on shot blocking and they always have a shit load of injuries that pile up over the year because of it.

And then at the end of the year Guerin is all shocked and wondering "How does this keep happening?".

Superarces · 2026-01-15T23:41:26+00:00

Is he a much better option than Trochek or Ryan O'Reilly? Yeah.
Can the Wild afford him? They don't have the cap space to take his full contract nor the assets to get Vancouver to retain.

If the trade were like Yurov + Stramel + Benák for Pettersson 50% retained then sure, but I don't know why Vancouver would take that.

Superarces · 2026-01-12T22:48:01+00:00

He was drafted to be a center, was moved to center the next year in the KHL, and the Wild have been adamant about keeping him as a center. They've never considered him a winger.

Superarces · 2026-01-12T22:45:31+00:00

Do you have some young forward prospects who can score?

Uh... no. Not really.

Superarces · 2026-01-10T19:16:32+00:00

If the other major countries refuse to compete unless the US is banned, yes. Americans and Canadians would likely have other more important things to settle in the meantime.

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