2010-11 Wild Mid-Season progress report...

2010-11 Wild Mid-Season progress report

2010-2011 Wild Mid-season Progress Report

Written by Derek Felska | 28 January 2011

Grades are something I know very well. I'd also like to think, that I know hockey pretty well too. As a teacher I award grades all of the time, its part of the job. It can be stressful for both the student and the teacher. Grades are expected to be both accurate and done expeditiously but add into that a student's and their respective parent expectations and you have a formula that can produce some considerable tension. I am not afraid to defend my grades, but any teacher will tell you the nagging phone calls and / or e-mails can get rather tiresome. You attempt to stay objective despite a parent and / or student's criticism but its tough to stay that way when they're telling you that somehow you must have made a mistake. Call it ego or whatever you wish, but no one likes to be told they've done something wrong, especially when you're the one with the expertise and the college degree in that subject. But hey, that's all apart of the job right? I wonder if that is how the NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman felt when he gave his annual State of the League address and press conference this evening. As he gave his progress report where he discussed league revenues which he said was on track for 6th straight year of record-breaking revenues as well as the topic of concussions that were discussed at the Board of Governor's meeting. He also stated that the amount of concussions have increased, but that the amount of concussions by head hits have decreased since the implementation of rule 48 which addresses blindside hits. Interesting data and food for thought to be sure. I have to admit, as the reporters questions started I took a little joy that the first question was about the banishment of a blogger by the New York Islanders. However, as one would expect there were a wide variety of topics brought up concussions, the possibility of having more teams starting the 2011 season playing in Russia, and ownership issues in Buffalo, Atlanta and Phoenix respectively. 30 minutes hardly seemed adequate to cover it all.

Going back to the Minnesota Wild, the first half of the 2010 season has had lots of peaks and valleys. It featured winning streaks and losing streaks. It had fans creating a pool over at wild.com attempting to predict when Wild Head Coach Todd Richards was going to be fired. Needless to say its been a pretty crazy season thus far but as of right now the Wild find themselves in 10th place in the Western Conference with a 25-19-5 record and just 1 point out of the 8th place spot currently held by the San Jose Sharks. For the first time ever, I am going to grade the entire organization from the farm system to the front office and scouting to the coaches, special teams and of course the individual players themselves. (click on the link for the rest of the article)

I grade just about every part of the organization. I'd love to hear what you guys think of the grades I gave. Enjoy!