From Bad to Worse: A Minnesota Wild Front Office Story
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After a winning streak that gave the fanbase some hope heading into All-Star weekend over a week ago, the Wild slammed everyone back to reality this weekend in classic Wild-like fashion.
TWO division games — TWO division losses | FOUR points on the line — Just ONE point collected
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The Wild’s new GM, Paul Fletcher, was suppose to “tweak” the roster when he took the job this offseason. At this point, if he does anymore “tweaking”, we might as well prepare for a full rebuild in the very near future (which would actually be refreshing).
Let’s just take a look at some of the um…. questionable… things Fenton has done, since taking control less than a year ago as GM of the Minnesota Wild:
— Allowing Flahr to run the draft and select Filip Johnansson —
If you think Fenton deserves a pass on the 2018 draft because he didn’t have enough time to prepare should look up the word A-C-C-O-U-N-T-A-B-I-L-I-T-Y. Former GM, Chuck Fletcher was fired for many reasons. One of them was poor drafting. If you’re the new boss and you know that fact, why would you let a leftover from the previous regime (Brent Flahr) make your first draft pick? That is fucking insanity… And then, Flahr leaves to reunite with Fletcher in Philly 5 months later… what a joke.
If Fenton wasn’t ready to make that pick himself then WTF was he doing as the assistant GM in Nashville? They must not have been scouting draft classes… ?
Dominik Bokk should have been the selection. Bokk is climbing prospect rankings and was selected with the pick right after the Wild’s selection, by the St. Louis Blues. In the last update from HockeyProphets.com, Bokk jumped from being not ranked up to the #34 forward prospect in the NHL.
To Fenton’s defense, I’m not going to argue with the Aberg trade or the Hunt move. They were solid buy-low gets. Both were relatively cheap and could work.
Paul Fenton got excited when he saw a former Nashville Predator defensemen, Anthony Bitetto. He signed him and maxed the roster at 8 defensemen. Now, Joel Eriksen Ek and Luke Kunin are stuck in the AHL because of that move. It makes ZERO sense. Hunt and Bitetto are both AHL defensemen and it’s quite obvious watching them. At least Hunt fills a need with his heavy shot and offensive prowess (haha I laughed while typing that).
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[/et_pb_code][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.19.9″]Why would the Wild not want Ek and Kunin getting valuable minutes and experience of an NHL playoff run? The Wild need both players too, because of Fenton’s biggest mistake yet.
— FENTON’S FATAL MISTAKE —
None of the issues I’ve bitched about so far compare to what Fenton did when he traded Nino Niederreiter to the Carolina Hurricanes for the dumpster fire that is Victor Rask. I know Nino was struggling but I feel everyone knew, outside of Paul Fenton, that Rask was terrible. Nino is flourishing on a line in Carolina with Sebastian Aho. He’s potted 5 goals already, including another one on Friday night.
Nino frustrated fans in Minnesota but he was an analytics darling and former 20 goal scorer. Instead the Wild now have a slow, defensive hazard, who did score 20 goals once but there is no fucking way that’s happening again. If Fenton keeps making moves like this the Wild will become the laughingstock of the NHL.
But on second thought, maybe that’s what we need. A nice long rebuild to fix this slow, inconsistent, inept roster.
Also, I know Rask scored last night. I don’t care.
Zak Klosowski | Minnesota Sports Fan[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]
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