Wild Times Ahead?

I am Tommy Ranney. I'll be contributing some bits from the hockey world. I've been a hockey fan for as long as I can remember. I grew up with the Golden Gophers being my #1 team and that hasn't changed a bit. I can't wait to watch them in Tampa in a few weeks. I also loathe all things Wisconsin and North Dakota (better dead than red. sue is a girl's nam... err... that's not your name anymore... whioux are you?) I am a suffering Wild fan 2nd and I'm going to take a stab at them right now.

The Minnesota Wild decided what kind of organization they wanted to be the day that we were granted another NHL franchise. Basically, former GM Doug Risebrough and the rest of the front office had a choice to make. Do we want to be competitive right away or do we sacrifice a few years and accumulate young talent? They decided to try and compete as soon as possible. How do you do that when you have very little talent? Hire Jacques Lemaire and play the trap. In year 3, we were treated to a great run all the way to the conference finals where J.S. Giguerre and his mammoth pads kept us out of the Cup finals.

The next few years gave us some playoff appearances and even a division title, but we hadn't been out of the 1st round since 2003. Fans grew tired of the "boring trap hockey" and wanted to see a more up tempo style. Personally, I was enjoying winning, making the playoffs, and watching Bouchard put up 50 assists. But is was evident that at a minimum, we needed a new GM. Risebrough seemed to have absolutely no plan for the future. We had very little draft picks, next to nothing in the prospect pool, and were never making successful trades to improve the team (see Chris Simon trade in 2008). So we brought in Chuck Fletcher to try to fix things up a bit. His first move was hiring Todd Richards as the new coach and gave him a mission that was doomed to fail. In Richards' 2 years as coach, he was told to play a new up-tempo style and score more goals (is that possible with Miettinen on the 1st line?). Fletch did not make many trades that made the team better in the present. He seemed focused on getting more draft picks and prospects, which was desperately needed. But, when Richards inevitably failed, we fired him.

This past off season, it seemed as though Fletcher decided to bring in more NHL level talent to try and assist new coach Mike Yeo. We were treated to a couple huge off season trades when we obtained Devin Setoguchi and Dany Heatley. It was the all-aboard call for the Wild bandwagon. I was sure we were playoff bound, although I was realistic and was not expecting the Cup. Just some quality playoff hockey in April.

Well, it hasn't quite worked out that way. The lack of depth has really shown this season with the number of injuries we have had to deal with. Bouchard, Latendresse, and Koivu have all missed significant time this season. Guys like Warren Peters, Carson MacMillan, and Jed Ortmeyer shouldn't be in the lineup every day. 

So looking ahead... it would appear that our future relies on some of the prospects developing to NHL stars to provide some much needed scoring depth. Oh wait I forgot about ZACH PARISE AND RYAN SUTER (a guy can dream right?). We are missing that dynamic goal scorer (ala Marian Gaborik). Heatley is nice, but he is only as good as those around him. He is lethal on one-timers and quick shots, but is rarely going to create chances for himself. 

So who, if anybody, will become and offensive threat and get this team back to the playoffs? Granlund? Zucker? Bulmer? Quitter Coyle? These next couple of years are going to make or break Chuck Fletcher's run as GM of the Wild.