Everybody freeze!

The Olympics are rolling around again, and for the second Games in a row, Russia is non grata, and will not be competing in Milan for the hockey medals. Check back in 4 years, and Canada and Scandinavia might be the only teams still allowed in!

One group that might be particularly excited about the Olympics? TSN gets to have another special ahead of a trade deadline. It isn't a formal deadline, of course, but there is a roster freeze ahead of the Olympic break, and many teams will be interested in altering their roster ever so slightly to gear up for the final postseason push. There will be a sprint after the Games before the real deadline is on March 6th.

While there is an emphasis on the roster freeze, I'm not sure why. A player won't be with the team, practicing with the team for the full stretch of the Games. Why not wait until after the Games to make a more considered move? The only real concern is another team getting your guy before you are ready to move, but how is that different from the rest of the lead up to the real deadline?

I do know that one team is not looking forward to the freeze, and particularly the break afterwards. The Colorado Avalanche are one of the best teams in NHL history, having dropped only 5 games all season, which is crazy. One has to think there will be some disruption when all of their players are playing for another team, and apart for the better part of February when they are in the midst of the campaign. They gotta wish the season kept going.

Oh, and the Avs are the best team in the league, but they are being chased the next two best teams out West, the Wild and the Stars. The Wild would have enough points to lead two of the other three divisions in the League, and is only a point behind the Hurricanes for 2nd in the NHL. 

Yeah, the Avs might not be interested in the roster freeze for making a trade, and might wish the break wasn't happening, not just because of the broken rhythm for their organization. The Wild, for one, has already traded for Quinn Hughes in one of the biggest in season trades the League has seen. The Stars aren't shy about making moves in season either. The Avs might not make moves, but the Wild and Stars are going to take every advantage of the roster shuffling that is incoming.

Tweet of the Moment

I'm going to have to workshop that one. It looks like Elon took away the ability to embed Tweets, so until teams start getting on other platforms, I guess we are looking at Facebook posts? I don't have much to say about this, except St. Paul isn't exactly a coffee hot spot. Being back to the grind would be a great pun for the Kraken.

I can tell you how it SHOULD go

 The beginning of trade season has seen one team in particular get very active very early. The Calgary Flames have taken advantage of talent on their roster, a somewhat underwhelming season and a market thirsting for talent infusions and executed a couple of big trades, sending Elias Lindholm to Vancouver and Chris Tanev to Dallas. Noah Hanifin is likely next, and who knows what else is to follow. 

Meanwhile, NHL.com states that the Minnesota Wild "might not [trade Marc-Andre Fleury] if the Wild believe they can make the Stanley Cup Playoffs. They're in the hunt...". Whether or not the Wild trade Fleury likely has more to do with whether or not Fleury wants to be moved. He's had a Hall of Fame career, is on his 4th team and is approaching 40. I can't imagine he's all that willing to be traded again, even to a cup contender, and the Wild are likely willing to let him have his way. 

But calling the Wild "in the hunt" is the really strange part of all this. The Flames, the team that has been jettisoning, and will continue to offload, their top talent, are a point ahead of the Wild, with two games in hand. This is, of course, made worse by the Wild dropping their two most recent games against two teams immediately ahead of them in the standings - the Predators and Blues (who are also, it should be said, ahead of and tied with the Flames, respectively).

The Flames are on a 5 game winning streak right now, and if the Predators weren't in the midst of an 8 game run, they would be right up against the final wild card spot. The Wild have been an uneven mess for most of the season. They haven't had any streaks, except for a brief minute after the all star break, where you thought that they would be making a run towards the postseason.

I'm an advocate for teams always making every effort to reach the postseason. Anything can happen when you get there, especially in this era when the first couple of rounds may be against a rival to help you get your blood boiling, but I also understand the Flames desire to cash in where they are able. The players they are trading away aren't going to be on the roster next year, and they are only at the periphery of the postseason conversation. Surely, they could make it, but also if they don't they would have lost Tanev and Lindholm for nothing.

A bigger gulf between the Flames and Wild isn't the attitude for the postseason. Minnesota just doesn't have the high end tradeable assets that Calgary does. Outside of Fleury, the Wild's other players on expiring deals are names like Connor Dewar and Brandon Duhaime, which will not attract the same kind of attention. 

From a strict performance standpoint, it should be the Wild and not the Flames selling off pieces already. In the end, we might not see the Wild do much of anything while Calgary remains active, because things aren't solely determined by performance. 

Tweet of the Moment

 

Thank you to Alexander Kirkland for being our Black History Celebration Night flag bearer on Saturday presented by @BMO_US! #mnwild pic.twitter.com/4v4eaF57id

— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) February 21, 2024

Hockey, of course, is lagging behind the rest of the sports world for inclusion of all races and communities, and if any market has demonstrated in the last several years that the bridge between cultures needs to be mended, it's Minnesota. Hopefully this is a tool to start building all the relationships that need building, recognizing Black youth hockey players in the Twin Cities areas, including a kid who might be the heir to the Costco Store Brand empire

Matt Dumba shouldn't be in Arizona

Free agency is almost at it's end this NHL offseason, with the most recent big name to get a new address being Matt Dumba, who will now be a Arizona Coyote. That's a bummer, not only for me, a Wild fan, but I think also for a lot of the teams in the NHL.

During the bubble, during a time of great civil discord in the Twin Cities and the nation at large, Dumba proved himself to be a leader not only for the hockey team, but for the sport. He was given a voice and didn't shrink from the spotlight. At the time, he represented what we all wanted hockey to be.

In  that time, and really ever since, Dumba was clearly on his way out in Minnesota, the victim of a tight cap situation, thanks to the presence of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter's albatross contracts, and a need to preserve some of the offensive talent the team had. 

It's not surprising that he left the Wild, as his talent and veteran status meant he was no longer a fit in Minnesota. It is disappointing that he ended up in Arizona. Dumba is a voice from within the game that needed to be heard by players and fans. In Arizona, he'll just be another player that nobody really cares about. Dumba ending up anywhere else was a better outcome. He will be muffled in Arizona

I watch the convoluted cap system of the NBA, or the designated player system in soccer, and wish there was a way to work around the NHL cap like there was in those leagues. If teams could keep their own players for lesser values against the cap that might help. So might not having a team in Glendale any longer.

Dumba, I hope, will be a great veteran peace in an Arizona team that will struggle a lot, before he turns into a trade deadline chip at the end of the year. I also hope that next year, he gets the multi year deal he deserves. For now though, it stinks.

Let's pretend I know what I was talking about

 Back in October, I had some thoughts:

The league seems to be very Eastern Conference heavy going into the year, and picking a winner there will be tricky. I'm going to lean into the Florida Panthers, who made a leap last year, and then spent the entire summer firming up their roster. They are going to be good again in 2022, and if my hunch that the Lightning are going to be flat is correct, they should have an inside track on the Atlantic. I don't trust the 'Canes, Rangers or Maple Leafs, so I guess the Panthers are where it's at for me.

 Pretty good, right? I mean, I did say the Panthers were going to win it all in 6, which they can't do, now down 3-1. That's clearly the biggest flaw in this post. 

Well, even in this paragraph, I don't mention the Bruins at all in a post about Eastern Conference contenders. That's not great. They had a pretty decent year. I did pick playoff teams for all the rest though, so I'll take points there! 

Oh, and I didn't include comments about the Western Conference. I highlighted, let's see, the Wild and the Blues. Wow. But I did say the Oilers were going to be good! Of course, I did also suggest that the champion from the Western Conference would be the Calgary Flames.

Not my finest hour. It's fine, I've only been doing this for like 10 years. 

Hey, don't do that!

 

Kirill Kaprizov earned the first ejection for the Wild in half a decade by finally losing his cool with the Kings and Drew Doughty in particular, punctuating it with a cross check to the face. The Wild have stated that Kaprizov hit Doughty with his glove, and he hit him in the shoulder, which demonstrates a particularly innovative strategy. They weren't lying, the Wild, but also, as we can clearly see, Kaprizov cleaned Doughty's face shield with his stick blade. Of course, Kaprizov DID also graze Doughty's shoulder, and also hit him in the arm with his glove on follow through. So the Wild weren't lying, but were definitely omitting some important facts. 

Kaprizov was responding to some goading from Doughty, and I believe he was trying to swat the bigger player's arms away after some pushing away from the play. Still, sometimes the result is more important than the intent, and Kaprizov was shown the door, adding another element to a rudderless 1-0 game. Sometimes, intent is more important than the result, which is why Kaprizov will not be suspended, and is fined only a few thousand dollars for his hit. We can all still role our eyes at the Wild for insisting this was a punch on the shoulder.

Look at me, writing about Russian hockey players

In a world with relentlessly bad news, how about we touch upon a little bit of good news? It turns out, the Russian government isn't holding NHL players hostage. Kiril Kaprizov is back in North America, despite concerns that he might have a warrant for having a fake military ID to evade service in Vladimir Putin's illicit war with Ukraine.

Of course, the war in Ukraine carries on. As the western world maintains their resolve against Russian aggression, the more likely it becomes that Putin and his cronies look for ways to lash out at those that are opposed, or aren't giving him enough adulation. Because Kaprizov and apparently Russian hockey players in the NHL writ large are safe and available today doesn't mean that won't change.

And unfortunately, there IS an athlete that plays North American sports being held captive by the Russian government. WNBA superstar Brittney Griner remains a prisoner, thanks to a specious charge of possession that occurred the day before Russia invaded Ukraine. The American government is trying to engineer a prisoner exchange for Griner and another American held in Russian custody. 

Many athletes, many leagues, and even a lot of NHLers will continue to show their support for Ukraine. It will continue to be the dominant factor in the global economy, political discourse and conversation until Russia ends the war. While we were told to stop talking about it at the last place I wrote, it will still be on our minds, and will still be threat to people like Kiril Kaprizov if he ever wants to go home, or Brittney Griner, who desperately wants to come home. 

But for the moment, we have the freedom to talk about the war and what we might ever be able to do to help, even if it is just the "Thoughts and Prayers" boilerplate. When all there is is hope, Thoughts and Prayers mean a lot more. And for the moment, Kiril Kaprizov simply has his freedom.

This has been a touch of good news.