Updates on Previous Posts

 

Mike Milbury out at NBC Sports…

 Back in August, I posted an article about Mike Milbury and how “he needs to go” after his controversial comments about women (read article here). On January 11, NBC Sports announced Milbury will not be returning for the 2021 NHL season. NBC Sports also announced Mike Babcock will be joining the broadcast team. I don’t think that was a smart move by NBC.

The reason why I say that is that Mike Babcock has been known to be verbally abusive towards players during his tenure with the Detroit Red Wings. Both Chris Chelios and Brendan Shanahan have stated how Babcock had been verbally abusive towards players—with Chelios giving an example of an incident involving Babcock and Johan Franzen during a game and Franzen ended up confirming the incident did take place in a response to CBC (read full article here.) What was NBC thinking when they decided to bring Babcock on? Did they not learn anything after the backlash of Milbury’s derogatory comments about women (among other comments about two NHL players)? Apparently not. I’m not a fan of Babcock as a coach. How long is it going to be before Babcock makes similar remarks to the ones that got Milbury in trouble and what NBC is going to do? Only time will tell on that one…

And no, I’m not impressed with Mike Babcock on NHL on NBC either.  I would rather watch Pierre McGuire than Mike Babcock at this point…

Then, on January 22, NBC Sports announced that its NBCSN cable channel will be shutting down at the end of 2021 and their sports programming is going to be moved to USA Network and to NBC’s Peacock streaming service. That will make things interesting since the NHL’s current TV deal with NBC in the United States ends at the end of the 2021-2022 season…

The Goaltending situation with the Wild…

The Wild’s season opened on January 14^th and as expected, Cam Talbot is the Wild’s starting goalie with Kaapo Kahkonen and the #2 goalie. With Alex Stalock now out indefinitely, we’re going to see Kahkonen get starts for the Wild due to the condensed 56 game schedule. So far, he’s 3-3-0 with a 2.86 GAA and .903 SV%. Are we going to see Stalock at all this season? At this point, who knows. There is no indication on how long he is going to be out for (article on situation with Stalock is here) or even what his injury is.

So, for the time being, the Wild are going with the tandem of Talbot and Kahkonen…and I’m perfectly okay with that.

Marco Rossi may NOT be in a Wild Uniform this season…

 After Austria’s dismal performance in the World Juniors tournament in Edmonton, Marco Rossi looked all set to join the Minnesota Wild, the team that drafted him with the 9^th overall pick. (My post introducing him is here).

Well, Wild fans are going to have to wait longer to see Rossi in a Wild uniform. Wild fans waited for FIVE years before Kirill Kaprizov joined the team, so we’re used to waiting.

Shortly after joining the Wild in Saint Paul, Rossi was put on injured reserve with an “upper body injury.” Granted, we all know Austria had a dismal performance in the World Juniors, and before that, he only appeared in one game with the ZSC Lions in Switzerland before a league-wide outbreak happened. On January 29, it was announced that Rossi was heading home to Austria for six weeks. I certainly was stratching my head, thinking what exactly is going on. Then the Wild announced the next day that his “upper body injury” was actually complications from having COVID-19 back in November.

Say what? Let me get this straight—Rossi had COVID back in November. He was then cleared by Zurich and then Team Austria to play in the World Juniors in December? That doesn’t seem right and a couple of weeks ago it now comes out he’s had complications? So, why the rush to get him to play? I know he was probably the biggest name on Team Austria and that the World Juniors would have given North American hockey fans a good look at him. Seriously, couldn’t this kid get some time off to rest and recover?

Rossi is supposed to return to Saint Paul some time in March. All I have to say is let this kid get some rest and time off to fully recover. There is NO rush to get him in a Wild uniform in this condensed season

Sources:

Hockey Wilderness: https://www.hockeywilderness.com/2021/1/29/22256584/minnesota-wild-marco-rossi-injury-austria-center-covid-19

Alex Stalock’s injury. What is going on? What does that mean for the goaltending situation for the Wild?

  

It was announced back on December 16, the Wild were signing goaltender Andrew Hammond to a two-way contract and Wild goalie Alex Stalock was going to be out indefinitely with what is being called an “upper-body” injury.

Alex Stalock

 With Stalock out, what does that mean for the   goaltender situation? For starters, the Wild had   the following goalies on the training camp   roster when training camp started on January   4^th at TRIA rink: Cam Talbot, Andrew   Hammond, Dereck Baribeau, Kaapo Kahkonen,   and Hunter Jones.

 What does that mean for goalies when the Wild   season starts on January 14^th? From what I   saw before the news of Stalock’s injury, Cam Talbot was going to be the starting goalie with Stalock being the back up. The plan was also going to include getting Kahkonen time in as the back up to get him some more games at the NHL level. There is the possibility that Kahkonen will be the #2 goalie behind Talbot. Now, with this 56-game season, the Wild are going to have a LOT of back-to-back games. Whomever the #2 goalie is going to be, they are going to get some NHL starts so that Talbot doesn’t get worn out. There are three other goalies right now vying for that #2 spot...

Kaapo Kahkonen 

If you don’t recall last season for Kahkonen with the Iowa Wild, he won 25 games (with 7 of those being shutouts) and posted a 2.07 GAA and .927 SV %. Those stats were good enough for him to be named the AHL goalie of the year. In the five career NHL games he has played in (all with the Minnesota Wild), he posted a 3-1 record with a 2.96 GAA and .913 SV%.

The big question is how long is Stalock going to be out for with this “upper-body” injury? Not much has been disclosed about the injury or how serious it is. Could he possibly miss the entire season as a result? The answer to that question remains to be seen.

Personally, I would like to see Kahkonen get some more time with the Minnesota Wild. I didn’t see him play at all when he did (partly because I was traveling for work last season). I would like to see what he can do in between the pipes for the Wild.