Role Playing: You're Chuck Fletcher

Go back to the beginning of the season and see where a lot of people had us pegged. It wasn’t near the playoff order. If we have faith in our prospects, many of whom seem ready to contribute immediately (granlund, bulmer) then be content with every win we get but don’t sweat it. it’s a players league and we don’t have good enough players especially on defense.

the one move i would make it moving one of Harding/Backstrom. Hackett is ready to play and we have more goalies in the wings. See if we can get a D prospect for one of our goalies. That’s about it.

But if Fletch moved Zanon a month ago, there would’ve been more value in the deal.

Just odd that waiting to act is the hallmark of the previous regime, not Fletcher.

Here’s a link to 2012 FA’s, who would make a good rental?
http://www.capgeek.com/free_agents.php?year_id=2012&team_id=-1&position_id=F&fa_type_id=2

How much should CF give up?

I just got done writing something similar to this in the Let’s Talk Trade Targets.

There is a dual weight here.

1. The fact that the Wild have not made it to the playoffs in 3 years, I’m on my second coach, and the team has issues filling the arena when things aren’t going well, puts a lot of pressure on me to WIN NOW. Make a trade or two, and demonstrate the desire and ability to get to the playoffs… where money is made and fans feel justified for spending their money all season. The extremely hot start to the season merely amps up the pressure on this side of the coin. Missing the playoffs will be seen even more negatively. Recent history is also not on your side as the team hasn’t really done anything at the trade deadline recently… either selling off pending free agents or making a trade to actually help the team fight for a playoff position. (*I am just pretending that trade for a certain Chicago ‘defender’ didn’t happen.)

2. The other reality is that the vast bulk of my top prospects will be filtering into the pros and possibly the NHL roster in the next 2 years:
Granlund (NHL next year)
Larsson (AHL/NHL next year)
Brodin (AHL/NHL next year)
Bulmer (NHL next year)
Coyle (AHL next year)
Zucker (AHL next year)
Phillips (AHL next year, NHL the year after)
My team has been on a fast train out of the playoffs for the past month. I have a lot of players in a contract year:
Latendresse (RFA) (Injured)
Brodziak (UFA)
Wellman (RFA)
Staubitz (UFA)
Nick Johnson (RFA)
Zanon (UFA)
Lundin (UFA)
Falk (RFA)
Stoner (UFA)
Harding (UFA)

I have cap room, even if the cap is lowered in a new CBA for next season. There will be a new CBA next season.

The best Wild team is still obviously the future potential Wild of 2 or 3 years from now. I won’t sacrifice that to chase a playoff spot that might be quickly fading. I won’t trade Koivu or Granlund. I probably don’t want to trade Setoguchi, or probably Shultz… not that I could with his price tag. I probably won’t be able to trade Zidlicky, Bouchard, Backstrom, Heatley, or Cullen.

Plan of action:

1. I start working the phones trying to find a nice rental player that wouldn’t cost any of the core from a team mostly looking to dump some salary for something heading into the off season. (Assets to use: 2012 2nd rd, Harding, Zucker)

2. If nothing happens on point 1, I have to make a hard decision on Brodziak. I like the guy. I want him on my team. I have center depth coming, am stuck with Cullen for another year. I realize that a high-functioning 3rd line center that adds secondary scoring, face off wins, and the ability to play up or down and on special teams depending on circumstances… these guys sometimes bring back decent hauls at trade deadline. I try to sign him for 3 years at a pretty reasonable rate. If he doesn’t want to do that now, I work to trade him.

3. I do my best to move Harding and 2 d men… Zanon and one of Lundin or Stoner.

4. I’m looking for returns of younger guys looking to try to make their mark, picks… anything but a higher priced older player with a year or more left on the contract. Guys to fill AHL spots to let some Aeros up would be just fine.

Play mostly for the future but try my damnedest to end the season in the playoffs. Having Lats and Bouchard hurt and out indefinitely really hurts my flexibility both in trying to trade and spur this team on to the play offs, to trade the margins and still be competitive, having some additional trade chips.

Seto-Koivu-Heatley
Wellman-Cullen-Clutter
Johnson-Brodziak-Powe
Gillies – Almond – Stuabitz

Schultz – Scandella
Spurgeon – Falk
Prosser – Ludin/Stoner

Backstrom
Hackett

The reality for the Wild is that they will have a lot of cap space, prospects, and open spots at the end of this year. They are positioned well to be a player in FA, in trades, and could quite possibly end up with a higher pick in the 1st round than anyone wanted. I try to make some minor moves, shuffle some things around, move some D, and then I sit tight and try to have another great off season.

1. Add a young beast of a winger… Evander Kane.

Latendresse(When healthy), Zucker and a pick

2. Then look to add more talent to the blue line, quality needed, not quantity. Phoenix makes a lot of sense, with their blue chip defenders.

Something along the lines of Bulmer and PMB for OEL

3. Trade Harding and Zanon

It certainly is a tough situation for CF. The prospects all seem to be coming up around the same time. One prospect I’m very excited about is Charlie Coyle. Yes, he left BU, but now he can concentrate on playing hockey. I have no numbers to back this up, but it seems like CHL players fare a lot better in the NHL than US college hockey players. Half of a season in the CHL could be good for him.

I think with Lats out now and probably gone after the season, Coyle will fit right in on the first line. He is a great net front presence for the first line, allowing Koivu to work down low, and Heatley to stay up in the slot. He scores from the crease, and is no slouch in setting up his linemates either. Also, he is good when working down low.

I think he will be on the team next year, patrolling the front of the enemy crease.

I go all in on a defensive rebuild by letting our kids play and getting anything I could for Zanon, Zidlichky, Schultz, and Backstom . I really don’t think our defense would suffer all that much by losing any or all of them

If I’m Fletch, I start making moves now for next year. Instead of treating this like a fantasy, I am going to be as realistic as possible. I’m not sure how many MLB fans are on here but I am going to use an example that happened a couple years ago to make my case. A couple years back, the Arizona D-backs traded their ace at the time, Dan Haren, to the Angels at the deadline even though the Angels had no shot at winning that year. Many questioned this move on both sides. The Angels came out and said they were making the move so they could compete the following year. I think this is what Fletch should do right now. We can still make the playoffs this year but I think we have seen far too many holes to make any impact. So in no particular order, here is what I do.

1. Make a decision on Brodziak, either sign or trade. If you sign him, great, versitle player with a greater defensive upside. If you trade him, get what you can and then make plans to acquire Frans Nielsen. Not exactly the same type of third line center as Brodziak but nonetheless comparable with more of an offensive upside instead of defensive.

2. Acquire a puck moving defenseman. I have said this before and it is hard for me to say again, but Harrison Mooney was right in his critique of our defense earlier this year. That pains me to say because I blasted him pretty good at the time. All of our defensement right now are pretty vanilla. Scandella has a bright future, but I think with the rest, what you see is what you got. We can’t have a team of just 4-6 defensemen, we need someone who can control the puck in all zones, has a little poise (the biggest problem right now is they all panic and chip the puck like crazy), and can start the breakout. People need to realize that we are not getting Shea Weber this off-season, he is a RFA and Fletch would be crazy to sign him to an offer sheet and crazy to give up the prospects necessary to land him. I for one am in the camp that thinks Weber and Suter go someplace together and probably stay in Nashville as boring as that is. I am going to use Joni Pitkanen as my example of the TYPE of player Fletch needs to target right now. He’s still pretty young, very established, proven track record, he’s a Finn (and we all love those), puck mover, poised, decent production, honestly a lot like Kim Johnsson. A player like this is going to cost a little in terms of trade and we will be picking up salary too, but he would help now and definitely help next year as well. Fletch tried this in acquiring Cam Barker, he swung and missed. Much better sample size from Pitkanen, I don’t like trading for young d-men because most still have not found their game.

3. Move on from Latendresse this off-season. Unless he agrees to a two-way contract which he would never do, it is time to cut the cord here. I am a huge Lats fan, but we have enough concussion-prone/injury-prone players, if we can get rid of one at no cost, I say do it. It’s not his fault but unfortunately we can’t be paying for a guy to be injured for a whole season year after year. We are stuck with Bouchard (again big fan but not really worth what he makes). If Butch had not gotten hurt, maybe he has some trade value this off-season, but he’s hurt and we need to ride out his contract.

4. Demote Zidlicky. He has a NTC but that is not a no-movement clause, he can go to the minors. That would serve as a wakeup call or at leat convince him to waive his NTC. Or we put him on re-entry waivers and someone maybe claims him on half his salary. I am ready to move on from this guy, I liked the move at the time but he does not fit in Yeo’s system.

5. Do not fire Yeo and point to your drafting to save your own job. Fans are inpatient, maybe rightfully so. But the reason this team sucks is not Fletch or Yeo’s fault, it’s DR’s. He set this team back about 10 years with his mismanagement and we are still crawling out of that hole he dug.

6. Other than acquiring Nielsen if you move on from Brodziak, do not make any forward moves for this season, save the cash for Parise this summer. Not the most popular opinion in any way, but why trade for an expensive veteran forward who can only pot a max of 25 goals when you can just sign a superstar this summer and not give up any assets? I think most people are underestimating Parise’s chances of coming here. The reality is that Russo was on Puck Daddy Radio earlier this week and said the Wild will throw the world at Parise and JP is almost encouraging his son to come here. He just bought a new house in Orono or something like that, it is worth not making moves now to save the cash and prospects to see if we can get him for nothing on July 1st. Make back up plans like Ruutu if that doesn’t happen July 1st, but the focus should be improving the defense through trade, not the offense through trade.

7. Move Josh Harding and Greg Zanon for whatever you can. There stock is falling the more we lose and we will lose them both for nothing sooner rather than later. Take the second round pick for Harding and the fourth for Zanon and move on.

8. Whatever you do, do not break up the core prospects or make a trade for the sake of making a trade. We do not need another Barker or Kobasew on this team. Like I said at the beginning, make moves for next year and focus on the areas that will be hard to address in FA and where you are light on stud prospects (defense).