Minnesota Wild Prospects: November 2013

Blog Philosophy

The main point of this blog is to provide a one-stop location for fans of the Minnesota Wild to follow their prospects. Of particular note are the embedded statistics for each of the players provided by hockeydb.com or eliteprospects.com. Indeed, the website was first put together so the author could more easily follow prospects that had not yet made the MN Wild roster! Hockeydb.com and eliteprospects.com do not have all of the prospects and their statistics on one page. Other features will be provided on the blog in the future and will likely include statistics of players who are on the Iowa Wild of the AHL or the Orlando Sun Bears of the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) or the Quad City Mallards of the Central Hockey League (CHL).

Occasional blog entries will also be present on a variety of topics that move beyond prospects, but are certainly limited to hockey. Blog entries aren't always comprehensive and may certainly omit some points/analysis for brevity.

The author doesn't pretend to be an expert nor have the time or ability to watch every Canadian Hockey League, American Hockey League, East Coast Hockey League, etc, game. The author does, however, certainly feel that he knows quite a bit about hockey. Much of his commentary is as a result of reading a lot of news articles from mainstream media such as tsn.ca, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, etc... The author does NOT merely repeat what other blogs or others in hockey forums write as he has noticed a lot of moronic opinions out there... The author's views and predictions will sometimes differ than major media reports such as Michael Russo, but he does not have access to professional scouts, players or management officials to make more informed predictions some matters.

Comments -positive or negative, though always civil- on blog entries, or other features are welcome and encouraged.

Pictures are acquired from the internet and if they are protected and the copyright has been violated, notify if you are the holder of said copyright and it will be removed or you will be given appropriate credit. This is just a blog, not a vehicle to make money by using someone else's photos.

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Fourteen games in and...

Mikhail Granlund is a completely different player than last year! Last year, he fell constantly and frequently with no contact causing it! He didn't add much to the offense and was slow. This year his vision is amazing, timing perfect and has really developed a connection with Pommenville.

Josh Harding has been terrific. His stats are sick! Very high save percentage and low GAA. Backstrom has sucked and looks old. If he plays like this the entire year, he will be a strong candidate for a amnesty buyout next summer.

Dany Heatley has been amazingly AWFUL! He's even slower and seems -in particular- to be be thinking the game much more slowly. One can see how his timing is just off. For example, he seems to want to make a particular play but is just a bit late executing it -frequently leading to a turn over. He's now on the 4th line and that is a generous move by Yeo.

Erik Haula and Jason Zucker are in Iowa and have been contributing down there. It will probably take a few injuries in the top three lines to get one of them called up. Almost all of the other youngsters on the Wild -Fontaine, Coyle, Granlund, Niederrieter, and Brodin look good. Matt Dumba looks reasonably good sometimes -for a 19 year old player- but other times seems lost. He can definitely be a liability on the ice and while it would be better for his development to be on the team this year, it would be worse for the team. Prosser has looked very good in the couple of games in which he's been able to play. Prosser is the "seventh" defenseman, but is surely more steady than Dumba at this point. My vote is to send him back to Red Deer.