Nashville predators jersey josi12/29/2023 ![]() ![]() But it'll be a surprise if they threaten to do so again. The Wild challenged the Avs and Stars for the Central Division crown last season. The same can't be said for the West's contenders. Other than a sneaky upgrade at the margins, replacing the Ryan Reaves role with a similarly aging but more skillful Pat Maroon, the Wild haven't been able to boost their team at the start of free agency. A combination of Bill Guerin decisions - some necessary, some not so much - has greatly limited their flexibility to upgrade this offseason. The draft came and went without Minnesota making a major trade. And the Wild aren't getting better this summer. In this league, if you're not getting better, you're getting worse. We don't know what the future holds, either, but we can guess pretty reasonably that the Weak West Window is going to close for Minnesota next year. Maybe that window would have opened for the Wild had they gotten past the first round. But when the teams you have to go through are a checked-out Winnipeg Jets, the top-heavy Edmonton Oilers, and a Dallas Stars squad that looked like Swiss cheese once Jake Oettinger faltered, their window was more open than most thought. But just about every other team going into the previous two postseasons was flawed, had serious questions, or both.įor example, few people expected Vegas to win a Cup while on their third or fourth goalie. Yes, the Colorado Avalanche are one of the NHL's best teams, and they are in Minnesota's division. It was that the Western Conference was uncharacteristically weak. Those were all the signs of a team that had Stanley Cup aspirations, but a big reason their hopes should've been high had little to do with anything they did or were. Nor was it adding the playoff bona fides of Marc-Andre Fleury, or Filip Gustavsson's sudden rise to prominence, or Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy's breakouts. ![]() The Lightning traded centre Ross Colton to Colorado for a second-round pick.In the past two years, Kirill Kaprizov wasn't the only thing that gave the Minnesota Wild any hope of a deep playoff run. ![]() After the awkward silence, Hughes tried to joke about Price’s flub being a planned gag before Reinbacher was officially introduced. Perhaps Price didn’t expect his team to select the 6-foot-2 right-hand shot, who played this year in Kloten, Switzerland, with names such as forwards Matvei Michkov and Ryan Leonard still on the board. The great goaltender was invited by general manager Kent Hughes to announce the Habs pick at fifth overall, but fogged on Austrian defenceman David Reinbacher’s surname, looking around for help after saying “David.” The Montreal Canadiens made the first surprise pick of Wednesday’s draft and it certainly seemed to flummox Carey Price. The maximum allowable salary for one player will be $16.7 million – which 20% of the cap. The cap floor will be $61.7 million, up $700,000, and a few clubs with fewer resources will have to make deals just to reach that figure or use the extra space as leverage in trades. That’s a $1-million jump from last season as the league’s economic picture continues to improve out of COVID-19. There is some relief coming for cap-strapped NHL teams.Īs expected, the league and players association said in a joint release, the new payroll ceiling for the 2023-24 season has been set at $83.5 million US. Treliving’s challenging work to come after Maple Leafs re-sign Kampf, Holmberg. ![]() How the first round of the 2023 NHL entry draft unfolded.Lucic goes all the way back to Game 7 of the 2013 playoff series against Toronto, which changed the course of the latter’s fortunes. Reaves played 73 games last season for the Rangers and Minnesota Wild and has 108 post-season games under his belt. The Winnipeg-born Reaves is 36, older than Wayne Simmonds as he transitions out as Toronto’s enforcer. That has Ryan Reaves being mentioned in conjunction with the Leafs, who have already realized they need to be tougher, especially in playoffs. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Manage Print Subscription / Tax Receipt. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |