(upbeat music) ♪ It's the Lockdown Podcast Network ♪ ♪ Your team every day ♪ (upbeat music) - On today's episode of Lockdown Wild, all the three goalie rotation is actually happening this year. (upbeat music) - Your Lockdown Wild, your daily podcast on the Minnesota Wild, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. - What is happening everybody? Welcome in to another episode of Lockdown Wild, your daily Minnesota Wild podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. We are your team each and every day. And we thank you for making Lockdown Wild, your first listen each and every day. Make sure you subscribe on YouTube and your favorite podcast platforms you don't miss out on any new episodes throughout the week. Today's episode of Lockdown Wild is brought to you by FanDuel. Now through September 22nd, all FanDuel customers can bet $5 and get a three week free trial of NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Visit fanDuel.com to get started. On today's episode of Lockdown Wild, Alex McLeade joins us as we take a look back at the Tom Carver's Prospect showcase. We discuss what seems to be more of a momentum gaining trends that the Wild are actually going to carry three goalies to start the season. And we'll take a look at how the Wild rank in some interesting tier lists as well. My name is Seth Topal, host of Lockdown Wild, have been the host of Lockdown Wild since 2021 and a credentialed Wild Media member joined by Alex McLeade here today and with how the Vikings did yesterday, Alex. I'm counting this as a victory McLeade Monday because the scores in at least that final Tom Carver's Prospect showcase game, a little on the lopsided side. But this is the kickoff. We got pre-season starting up this week and we have officially hit the ground running with the NHL season. And I think a lot of us are very excited to see how this plays out. But as we'll talk about here in a little bit, seems like we're going to go into it with some head scratchers. - This team is never boring. The organization is never boring. They always provide some content. So yeah, it was nice to see some players in Wild, the year forms out on the ice and an actual game type in environment. So we're here, pre-season's gonna be right around the corner. So let's do this. - In the prospect showcase, I was celebrating my birthday over the weekends down to start the weekend in Rochester and then worked my way back home to watch the Vikings. So I didn't have a ton of chance to watch the games, but from what I gather and Isha and I dove into it pretty extensively for my soda pot appearance this week, but not a shock. It sounds like Riley Hight was one of the guys that really stole the show. Kate and Bankier had a couple of goals as well. And it's a fun way to just kind of gauge the process of not the top level guys. 'Cause you're not, we didn't see Jesper, although we'll talk about likely why that is here in a little bit. Didn't see Jesper, you know, you didn't see some of those high-end prospects that expect to factor into the NHL roster this year. But it is fun to just see where some of the other guys are at. We had, you know, all the main defensive prospects, Carson Lambos, Jack Pertz, Kyle Masters, guys that people really are intrigued to see how they do this season. And so it was a nice mix of just seeing what these guys have and on the goalie side, same thing. You had Samuel Levi, you had Chase Wutsky, a couple of guys that really are drawing some intrigue. And so a good weekend, I didn't hear any reports of anybody getting injured, which is also a plus. And so it looks like, it looks like job, well done, especially for Riley Hight. Like you want to go out there and you want to be the focal point, like where he's at in his process, trying to make the team, trying to make a roster spot with training camp and with preseason performances. You want to be one of the standouts from these types of events. And so by all accounts, he stole the show and, you know, that's exactly what we were looking for here this weekend. - Oh, 100%. And, you know, we're gonna talk about it later in the episode, but Hight could still, you know, there's ways of him making the team. It might affect some other guys being stuck in Iowa that probably don't want to be in Iowa, but yeah, it's gonna be fascinating to see if he can, you know, this was an opportunity for him to be in the spotlights, you know, amongst his, you know, select age group of peers and, you know, for him to score, you know, that, you know, that is, you know, looks good in his, you know, his favor. And, you know, we'll see, he's gonna just have to keep, keep pushing. There was a quote from Bill Garen that there's a little FU in his game, which is, you know, it gets, it's people all fired up too. So when the GM is, you know, praising a, a player, a potential roster player. So yeah, we'll see, you know, you know, when he talks about him, he talks like he did when Brandon Doohame was an unknown. And everybody at McHoo, nobody really knew about Brandon Doohame at the time. And he kind of forced his way on to the roster. So yeah, we'll see if Hite can do the same thing. - It'll be very interesting to see how this roster plays out because I know he's trying to kind of hedge his bets, but it just seems more and more like Bill Garen is talking like, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna try to squeeze him onto the roster, which makes what's coming next make absolutely no sense. But, you know, I just, I really hope that, I really hope that he's given a legit shot. Like that's, that's my, that is my overall like, and you know, we're gonna do like mission statements for the season. My hope through the preseason is that Riley Hite is given a legitimate shot. Like I'm not talking, hey, you got into the lineup as a fourth line guy. Congrats. Put him with, 'cause they're not gonna play a ton, but put him with Matt Boldy and Marco Rossi or Matt Boldy and Juillirksenak or Karol Kaprizov in Juillirksenak. Give him a shot to see where he stacks up with the big dogs because that's the, like, that's the thing that I think has been confusing about some of these call ups is we're not expecting Riley Hite to be like a bottom six, like change a pace type guy. You're expecting him to be a huge part of what this team is gonna be doing moving forward. So give him those opportunities. Like give him the opportunity to just see where he's at in his process. - Yeah, and there's that top six spot clearly open because Marcus Johansson didn't do anything. Everybody else that was given an opportunity really didn't show that they deserve to be in that spot. So it should be an open competition for Hite, for O'Gran, for Usindeedov. I mean, there's that glaring, glaring hole right there. - The one guy that I wanna shout out 'cause Isha and I talked about him a little bit over on the soda pod, Stevie Lescovar was a menace. Like there are some good highlights of him absolutely laying the lumber against Chicago. And I like how high Isha is on him because of what he brings to the table as a very physical defenseman. Something that Bill Garrin really values. And so don't be surprised. - Not a tough amount of organization too. - Yeah. - When you have that attribute that helps. - Don't be surprised if he gets fast tracked, if he's ready, like if he shows that he's close within the next couple of years, don't be surprised if he gets fast tracked because the physicality, the heavy hitting, like that kind of stuff is needed, especially with the makeup of this roster as it is. And if he brings it, like, we'll find out. We're gonna get into it here because some comments made over the weekend make it seem like the while they're going to carry three goalies to start the season. And it makes me wanna light my head on fire because it's just, it's infuriating, honestly. And so we're gonna talk about the likelihood that the Minnesota Wild break camp with three goalies and what that means for the rest of the roster. As we continue today's episode of lockdown wilds after this. Today's episode of lockdown wild is brought to you by FanDuel, you have heard us talk a lot about FanDuel America's number one sports book. Well, we have something a little different for you. Now through September 22nd, all FanDuel customers can bet $5 and get a three week free trial of NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Then with a YouTube TV base plan, you'll be able to watch every regular season Sunday afternoon out of market game. All you need is a Google account and a current form of payment and you can cancel anytime. Just visit FanDuel.com, download America's number one sports book today. Again, you have till September 22nd to take advantage of this deal from FanDuel, America's number one sport, you know? We love talking stats here at lockdown wild. Here's one that's super simple to remember. Discover automatically doubles the cashback you've earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with cashback match. That means with Discover, you could turn $150 cashback into $300. That's right. You could put it towards the memorabilia you've had your eye on or treat yourself to a premium sports network. You earn and discover doubles. See terms at discover.com/creditcard. Welcome back to today's episode of lockdown wild. Once again, we thank you for making lockdown wild, your first listen each and every day. We are going to be continuing with the player previews here over the next couple of weeks and the network. Lockdown has some extra programming. That will be coming your way as well. So stay tuned for that. We got a lot that we're going to be hitting you with from now until the start of the season, which is October 10th. So stay tuned. Lockdown wild has you covered. All right, let's get into it, Alex. Jud's hockey show had John Heinz on late last week. And I didn't find out about this until after I was back because the campsite that I was staying at had zero cell service. Like instead of showing like the number of bars that you had, my phone just said SOS. So I'm like, ah, that's unfortunate. But yeah, it was fun. And honestly, it was kind of fun just being off the grid for a couple of days. But I came back and saw that John Heinz was on. And we had some comments in the Lockdown wild comments section over the weekend as well. It sounds like this three goalie thing has a lot of steam. And I got to tell you, I just don't get it. I just don't understand why this is something that the wild appeared dead set on doing for a number of reasons. Number one, again, you're right up against the cap. And so by having Jesper on the roster, you are preventing somebody else from having one of those spots, i.e. Riley Heights, because Jesper's current salary is 925k. And so you put him on the roster. You're like, I think the actual breakdown was something like 500k in cap space. You got nothing. And so that is a very valuable roster spot. So that's number one. Number two, if you are going to have Jesper on the roster, then you are confirming what a lot of us feel already, that Jesper doesn't stand to learn anything else at the Iowa level. He has completed his training. He's graduated from playing at the AHL level. And you feel like the next part of his process is being on the NHL roster. But you're really gonna go through the early part of the season and mix him in once in a while, because Philip Gustafson's not gonna get a ton of time off because he's gonna be the one that's expected to get the wild through most of the season from a goalie perspective. Mark Andre Flurry's 39 years old. Bill Garin may say that he thinks he can still start 40 games highly unlikely. And so you're going through with those two as your primary goalies and you're gonna just, you're gonna have Jesper here. And I think we knew that unless there was a goalie move made, he was gonna be the injury fill-in. But you're gonna have him on the roster and you know, give him starts here and there as opposed to getting like he could, he could in Iowa probably start between 50 and 60 games. Is he better served doing that? Or is he better served sitting on the bench and starting once every five or six games? I think it's a pretty easy choice for me. I would rather he be on the NHL roster right now, but with this current makeup, his best scenario for the season is to just continue to pile up starts. If he can't do that at the NHL level, he better be down in Iowa doing it. - Yeah, it makes no sense to have him be just stuck in the press box right by you. He could be your post-game correspondent, if that's how it's gonna, if that's how it's gonna go. But it doesn't do any of them papers. It doesn't help Mark Andre. It doesn't help Phillip Gustafson. - Yeah, it's the old saying again, where if you have three goalies, it's like the two quarterbacks, if you have two, you don't really have one. So it's just a, it's a kind of a mess. And this wild team has clearly shown that they can't stay 100% healthy a lot of the time too. - Yeah, I just don't get it because you're like, you just look at the roster and like the players that are going to be on this team, there are a lot of them. And there are a few guys in particular that I think we all agree could be valuable roster spots in which you can provide an upgrade by somebody that has a little less experience but has more to offer. And those spots are not, those spots are not frequent. And so if you're going to, teams don't carry three goalies as it is, like I can understand if you have like a 10 game road trip and this is probably the justification for it at the beginning of the season is because the wild are on the road for like 10 straight games. And so if you have an injury to one of those guys, that's then, you know, you're kind of SOL unless you have an additional goalie on the roster. That's one thing. But if you get through that road trip and are not immediately like, "Okay, let's do something else with his roster spot." Like if he just stays up the whole season, it is, I may, it may be a little much to go as far as saying it's stunting his development but it's certainly not helping it. - Yeah, it causes chaos for everybody and it's never really worked at the NHL level with other teams. I mean, maybe in short stints but it ain't long term, it's not great for a team that thinks they can make the playoffs. - Yeah. - Well, that's a lot to ask if they're gonna do this way. - The situations in which it has been quote unquote successful is when you've got about a 38, 39, 40 year old veteran who is the third wheel, who is the one that is getting like 10 to 15 starts and is okay with that because it's either do that or retire. - I can see him talking about that and he didn't come back to be the, just the, you know, the, like a charity type. - No. - Yeah, that's not how you treat a former Stanley Cup champion too, yeah. Hall of Fame first ballot. I, and again, this is me probably a little overreacting. We can't really make a determination until we see what the roster looks like but if it's being discussed, then that means that it is something that the team has given a lot of thought to, which again, is not something I'm super, super on board with. Like if you're gonna, if you're gonna go into next season with Philip Gustafson and Jasper as your goalie tandem, which is what I would like, are you, you're gonna go into the year and you're gonna say, yeah, we think yes, we're had a really good year development wise. He got six starts. Like, no, that's not progress. - Yeah, well, the one thing I was gonna bring up too is Bill Darrin clearly did not want this roster to be set with him doing everything to try to get Patrick Linet. So I just, I think he still has things up his sleeve that he's trying to figure out because he desperately wanted, it seems like another top six forward that was outside of the organization. And with the goalie market too, it just, it seemed like, I don't know how hard they tried to move Gustafson, but they didn't try hard enough or teams, the scary thing is, all these goalies got moved and they saw the tape on Gustafson and they think, they must think that it's not gonna get better, you know, it got worse, but is it gonna get back to, - Yeah, that's the unknown and is he gonna be in shape, Philip Gustafson because that's a big problem for him. - I think if he can be, you know, even like 70% of what he was two seasons ago, I think that's a win. And I think he can get back to that level. Maybe that's like the best that Philip Gustafson has to offer. But you're now running into a situation where, like as preseason gets going, as training camp gets underway, you've got this thought in Bill Garren's head of like, well, we need to, we need to free up some spots. And I don't want him to just go to the guys that don't have trade protection and say, well, this is the path of least resistance. You put this roster together, you're gonna have to make a tough choice. And so, you know, that's another thing that I'm watching this preseason is, if these young players do like we think they're going to, are you going to do what's necessary to give them an opportunity to shine? - Yeah. And a name that hasn't been talked about a whole lot, and I'm kind of surprised is, what are they gonna do with John Merrill? It doesn't, I mean, because it doesn't seem like he has a clear roster spot. And it seems like they're gonna try to maybe put him on waivers. And then if not, Barry is contract in Iowa. It just doesn't seem like there's any chance, especially with Chisholm now on the team as well. - Yeah. He really, I think really only factors into even, even a little bit of playing time if there's an injury in front of him. Like he's, otherwise he's gonna be, he's gonna be in the press box the whole season. If we stay, if the wild stay relatively healthy, he'll, he'll get mixed, he'll probably get mixed in sparingly if somebody needs a night off, but other than that, like. - Yeah, it's gone off the treatment. - Yeah, that's all the wild have to offer. So, I don't know, we'll see. The, the great, the great equalizer in preseason for a team with a lot of roster questions is preseason injuries. We saw that last year. So, hopefully that doesn't happen this year. Hopefully it's just that players, you know, the young guys really perform well and it leads to some tough decisions. - Well, the, the most ironic thing that the wild did is, is sign the kid that injured Jared Spurgeon. (laughs) And he's Johnson is. - Oh boy. - I mean, Iowa wild or, you know, he doesn't make the, the Iowa, the Heartlanders, but yeah, just kind of ironic that they sign the, sign a player that, that hurts the captain and pretty much derail the last year's season. - A lot of questions, a lot of questions before the season gets started. And we'll, we'll continue to dive into them. We'll take a look at all the storylines as we get you set for the season right here on lockdown wild. When we finish up the show, when we come back, we're going to take a look at how the wild stack up and some interesting tier lists. Alex and I were talking about this over the weekend and we'll see where the wild stack up in a couple of interesting tiers. That's on the way to finish today's episode of lockdown wild, you know? We love talking stats here at lockdown wild. Here's one that's super simple to remember. Discover automatically doubles the cashback you've earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with cashback match. That means with Discover, you could turn $150 cashback into $300. That's right, you could put it towards some memorabilia you've had your eye on or treat yourself to a premium sports network. You earn and discover doubles. See terms at discover.com/creditcard after this. One final segment of today's episode of lockdown wild. Once again, we thank you for making lockdown wilds or first listen each and every day. Reminder for you, the lockdown wild sweepstakes continues as we'll be taking submissions up until the first week of October for a chance for you to head to XL Energy Center to watch the Minnesota Wild take on the Columbus Bluejack. It's we're giving away two tickets to that game on opening night. All you have to do to enter is take a screenshot of proof that you have subscribed on YouTube and add your name in as well just so that I can keep track. Email that to lockdownwild@gmail.com and you're entered. And we will be drawing the winner in the first week of October, which is gonna be here before you know it. So full contest rules can be found in the description of today's episode. Alex, Mike Bartner on Instagram, a hockey content creator, and he does a lot of these lists. Various ranking the, like I've got one here predicting the highest paid goalies in three years. Does a lot of good stuff on a cool graphics. And you drew my attention to a couple that I thought were really intriguing over the weekend. And let's go to what he's calling the best prospect big three. Best forward, defenseman and goalie prospects in the league. And the San Jose Sharks were number one with Celabrani Dickinson and Ascarov. Montreal was number two with Demodov, Hudson and Fowler, your Minnesota wild. Check in at number three with Danilla Yurov, Zeev Buoyam and Jesper Vollstead. All expected to be, you know, high impact pieces of this Minnesota wild lineup. And so I like that they're at three should they have been a little higher than those other two big threes? - Yeah, that's San Jose just 'cause they have celabrani that kind of gets, but I like Buoyam over Dickinson, but I mean, yeah, it's such a, such a hard, you know, maybe a little bit higher than Montreal. It's, yeah, that I think San Jose is for sure one, but you could argue that the wild have a little bit. I like Fowler the goalie from Boston College. He was, he had a heck of a season in world junior, but yeah, the wild would be right there with Air Trio. - He also did a list ranking every big three in the NHL, best forward, defenseman and goalie. Minnesota wild were in the top 20 with their list. Kaprizov, Faber and Gustafson. And I gotta wonder, I mean, 16 through nine pretty darn good. The fact that the Florida Panthers are at nine, the fact that Dallas is at 10 is kind of interesting. I gotta feel like the questions around Phillip Gustafson are why the wild rank at 18 here. So I think maybe they should be a little higher on these rankings especially. - Yeah, it comes out of the goaltending and, you know, the off here that Gus had, if he can bounce back, then, you know, they definitely would get closer to the top 10. - He also has top 10 band wagons to join this season. Number one is the New Jersey Devils. Number two, the Nashville Predators. Number three, the Dallas Stars. Number four, the Washington Capitals. Number five, the Utah Hockey Club. Number six, V, Minnesota Wilds. And as Mike says in the description, this is really just based on vibes of how active the teams were this off season and how likely they are to improve over last season. Also, how likely making the playoffs or going on a deep run was, did not consider any teams that won a cup recently. Wild weren't active, but I can see where the national steam expects because the wild have been a playoff team over the last 13, 14, 15 years. Like they've been a playoff team, haven't really gone anywhere. And so I can see where the logic says, well, because they didn't make the playoffs this past season, they're going to improve and make the playoffs in 2024, 2025. But I think those of us here, expect that this is going to be tough, especially with how the central division is lined up, that it's just, it's going to be tough to make the postseason for the Minnesota Wild this year. - Yeah, I mean, the defense, which has always been the calling card of the wild, it's continued to go the opposite way of being a strength. And special teams has been a major, major red flag. So unless, unless those two things improve and the goal tending, because they can score, it's a matter of keeping it out of their own, that is the major issue. 'Cause I think they, you know, having, having Caprice off, having Baldi, I mean, those guys are going to put up big numbers, but they don't play defense and they don't play goalie. So, and neither of them really played penalty kill. Baldi might start to now, but the penalty kill is such a glaring issue on this team still. - Well, as long as the wild go with three goalies, and again, if they do this just because the first, of the first 12 games of the season, I think 10 of them are on the road, if they do that just to start the year and then back off that, okay, fine. But if they, like, if they roll through the season and are like, oh, we're just, I think we're just going to keep doing this. I'm going to get, I'm going to get cranky. So just please, like give, either give Jesper, consistent starts at the NHL level, or just send him back down to Iowa. I think the point is that if the starts aren't available at the NHL level, then he should just continue to start in Iowa until they are, as opposed to just taking up a spot on the bench. - Yeah, 100%, it's so frustrating when it's, you see moves like that that really could throw off the vibes of the team, how it's going to function. And there's new additions to the coaching staff and how's, you know, Jack Capiano, how's that going to, you know, enter in? 'Cause, you know, Darby was so beloved in that locker room and how, you know, how, you know, the players would come to him and, you know, they use kind of a in-between, you know, the head coach, you know, and just someone they could talk to and go to for help and just, yeah, a great leader. So that's going to be tough to replace them. We'll see if that move works or not, for sure. - That'll do it for today's show. Thank you to everybody for tuning in, as always. Make sure to hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on any new episodes throughout the week. We are going to continue to ramp things up as we get closer to the season, which is under a month away. And so make sure that you stay tuned so you don't miss out on any of the big storylines heading into the season because we've got you covered here at lockdown wild. We have new episodes for you every Monday through Friday as part of the lockdown podcast network. - A Prime members, you can listen to this lockdown podcast ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. (upbeat music)
