Wild dip into NCAA FA pool, sign Casey Wellman

http://www.startribune.com/blogs/87706102.html

Quote :

Wellman arrives Tuesday morning and it's unclear as of now if he could potentially make his NHL debut against the Edmonton Oilers. He will be eligible and he IS NOT going to Houston.

Wellman is a right-shot centerman. He's got a great shot, is excellent on draws.

Don't really know much of the guy. Has decent stats, 22 year old sophomore.
http://hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=99417

Listed at 6'0 160 on hockeydb, but 6'1 185 on his school webpage.
http://www.umassathletics.com/sports/m-hockey/mtt/wellman_casey00.html

Well, more writing on the wall for Jimmy "bust" Sheppard?

and it sounds like we signed the kid too, hell yeah!

bah fuck, i misread the title. lol. i am pumped to see this kid play.

00Xtremeninja wrote:

bah fuck, i misread the title. lol. i am pumped to see this kid play.

I changed it after I got confirmation on the signing.

Headed right to the NHL, goodbye Shep. The rest of the year is a "show us" period for him. A strong showing would likely stop us from signing a center. Finally a young forward with top-6 upside. Good job CF.

good by GMCF he actually went out perused a high profile college FA, name me one time DR did this? this is basically a free prospect, he sucks he gets send to minors, he peforms he's a reliable player who can play top 6. The point of this is that we're actually doing someting toward our future and just standing by.

I like the signing. Basically a no risk; medium reward pickup. But I am not convinced that our 2nd line center woes are fixed yet either. Wellman still does have to prove that he can make the jump from NCAA to NHL. Good luck to him and obviously I hope for the best. Not trying to bring down any negative waves tho. He certainly can't do any worse than Shep.

Looking forward to watching Wellman tonight... Also Falk will play if Zanon can't.

Well through one game he looks good. Should of had a goal though. Skated well, went hard to the net, fore-check. He looked unsure of himself defensively on left wing, playing a "peewee" style of staying high and near the boards.

Sheppard at center. Wellman at wing.

Fire Todd Richards.

sqare wrote:

Sheppard at center. Wellman at wing.

Fire Todd Richards.

I thought Shep had a decent game. Then again, when the whole team is playing like shit he seems to look better. Wellman, Sheppard, and the constants(Koivu, Brodziak, Clutterbuck, Brunette, and Kobasew) looked fine, the rest not so much. Richards made the right move letting Wellman play with Kobasew and Brodziak, you need 2 guys who understand the game for a kid in his first game.

Havlat was absolutely terrible. Worse than I remember him at the start of the year. Latendresse can't really create on his own, he needs a motivated Havlat. I feel bad for Falk though, concussion in his first game.

Excellent signing IMO (and not just becasue Wellamn's debut went well). The Wild's prospect cupboard is bare (anyone see where THN ranked the Wild in their recent Prospects issue? Yesh!) and going after overlooked college kis is a good way to get some new blood into the system.

Fargo wrote:

Excellent signing IMO (and not just becasue Wellamn's debut went well). The Wild's prospect cupboard is bare (anyone see where THN ranked the Wild in their recent Prospects issue? Yesh!) and going after overlooked college kis is a good way to get some new blood into the system.

The Wild prospect cupboard is bare because of traded away picks and rushed/disappointing 1st round picks. Beniot Pouliot was never given a legitimate shot with quality linemates, James Sheppard should still be a prospect, but he's into his 3rd year in the NHL. Colton Gillies needs to regain confidence because of being rushed, and Tyler Cuma needed a year to regain his form after a serious knee injury, while Leddy was dealt. Last 5 first round picks, none of them have been on the right path with the Wild. In those 5 years we've only made 3 2nd round picks, one was Fiala who was never signed(knee injuries prevented a signing, but it was a bad pick in general), one was Kassian, a goon, and the other Scandella, our top prospect IMO. 3 3rd rounders as well, Westblom was never signed, while Clutterbuck was a great pick, and Hackett appears on the right track.

5 years, 4 picks signed between the 2nd-3rd rounds. You wonder why its bare? Theres the reason. Then again I'm preaching to the choir here, you all know this.

Right now we have 2 2nds and a 3rd for this year. If we keep all them we should have 3 players who sign from the 2nd-3rd rounds in ONE YEAR, when we only have had 4 in the last 5 drafts, and one is a goon only....

Another reason as to why our prospect pool is the worst is the lack of production. Tyler Cuma and Marco Scandella are both defensive d-men, while Colton Gillies and Cody Almond are 3rd line checkers. If we're looking at production, we have an undersized undrafted d-man in Noreau and a 7th round pick undersized forward in Haula, longshots to ever play in this league.

Noreau will be our Brett Sterling.

on an aside, if you read my blog from last weekend, you know why I know more about Brett Sterling now... I won an autographed puck by him and I was like "who?"

I hate not knowing something.

am i missing something here, i hear people saying how we have 2nd and 3rd rounders this year but never mentioning if we have a 1st rounder. We still have a 1st don't we?

DR took our first with him... It was part of his severance package.

sqare wrote:

DR took our first with him... It was part of his severance package.

i hope its just a joke because if we don't have our first there better be a good fucking reason

We have our first rounders.

The only thing we've traded away (that's on the books) is our 2011 2nd. Not our 2010 2nd.

lol's point is that having so many 2nd and 3rd round picks is a HUGE change from the DR days.

sqare wrote:

We have our first rounders.

The only thing we've traded away (that's on the books) is our 2011 2nd. Not our 2010 2nd.

lol's point is that having so many 2nd and 3rd round picks is a HUGE change from the DR days.

i'm just shocked given what i've heard about Gillies's potential as to why we would give up draft picks to pick him. From what i've heard he's not going to break a 10g barrier, why the fuck would you give up picks to draft a guy who can't score 10, in the first fucking round.

yeah its nice having pics, its nice getting some prospects.

Gillies hands are junk. His shooting is equal to Miettinen's, just slightly harder and slightly less accurate.



How's that for a damning review?

However, Gillies is a very physical player and once he fills out just a bit more, is going to be a much stronger version of Clutterbuck. His timing on his hits is just fine, from what I saw.

Honestly, in a couple of years, the line of Gillies - Almond - Kassian is going to be a nice checking line. The scoring threat will come from Almond, on a checking line.

forthewild wrote:

am i missing something here, i hear people saying how we have 2nd and 3rd rounders this year but never mentioning if we have a 1st rounder. We still have a 1st don't we?

The only reason the 2nd and 3rds were mentioned is because they have been such a rarity for this team the past few years. We still have our 1st... but that's not a news flash.

sqare wrote:

Noreau will be our Brett Sterling.

on an aside, if you read my blog from last weekend, you know why I know more about Brett Sterling now... I won an autographed puck by him and I was like "who?"

I hate not knowing something.

I remember buying up Sterling RCs(there were other guys, Mikko Koivu was one of them) for nothing a couple years ago. Thought he was going to be another St. Louis. Noreau, I don't care much for and seems you don't either.

forthewild wrote:

am i missing something here, i hear people saying how we have 2nd and 3rd rounders this year but never mentioning if we have a 1st rounder. We still have a 1st don't we?

We do have it, but we always kept our own first rounders. The only first rounders we've dealt is the move-ups for Gillies and Cuma, along with the 1st acquired for Roloson in the Demitra trade.

We're going to be in an interesting position on draft day. As many people know, there are 2 elite forwards, and 3 Russians who could easily be #3, 4, and 5 in terms of talent among forwards. We don't draft Russians, and TOCL(Team Owner Craig Leipold) had the Radulov situation, so I assume it will remain that way(we passed on Kulikov last year before the trade down as well, and hes been excellent for Florida, but you would of had to give him an NHL spot at 18 to prevent KHL). You could say a bunch of different names among non-Russians for the top forwards after Hall and Seguin.

Austin Watson finished strong after recovering from his broken ankle, and jumped up to #8 on ISS's newest rankings, compares to Jordan Staal as a big(6'3 listed) versatile forward, able to play in all situations. The Neiderreiter hype has lasted, he could be there, but he's a lower ceiling player IMO. Granlund had a great year in the FNL, but he's probably only 5'9 and a slow skater, 2 big turn offs. Brett Connolly has skill, but he's been injured this year as well. Sheahan has already done a year in the NCAA, unimpressive numbers like most freshmen. I could go on but those are some of the names among forwards who could be there.