Day One Aftermath
Posted on June 22nd, 2007 – 10:34 PMBy Michael Russo
OK, first off, as a former Islanders fanatic, I nearly flipped off the chair when the Wild took Colton Gillies. I couldn’t wait to tell the kid, “Your uncle was one of my heroes.”
Then he told me he never met his uncle and I almost screamed, “I’ve even met your uncle!” But Clark is not like Colton’s father or mother’s brother. It’s like one of those twice-removed, brother of a brother, type things, so they’ve never even spoken. Actually grandfather’s brother, he said. Still, Colton said, “His blood runs in my blood and I’ll try to be like him.”
Anyways, we’ll get to the Manny Fernandez stuff in a second.
As for moving up three spots from No. 19 (traded the 19th and 42nd to Anaheim for the 16th) to take the 30th-ranked North American skater in the draft (by Central Scouting), that might make some go, “Huh???”
But assistant GM Tommy Thompson says that this is the guy he wanted all along (I’ve covered 11 drafts and have never been told differently by a chief scout), and he was convinced that the Calgary Flames would take Gillies at 18.
Now, Thompson would not fill us in on why he was so convinced, but I bet I know why. Calgary’s table was right next to the Wild’s? Hmm, eaves-dropping, perhaps? Regardless, Thompson believes his suspicions were proven correct when the Flames traded down two picks later.
The Wild had such high regard for the great Clark Gillies’ nephew, Minnesota took Colton over Angelo Esposito, who two years ago was supposed to be the No. 1 pick in this draft, the talented Russian Alexei Cherepanov, who apparently spends several games not caring, and all the defensemen Thompson loved in this draft.
Gillies is a fantastic skater and a guy who’s relentless along the wall. The Wild doesn’t believe he’ll be a guy that gets a lot of goals in the NHL. He only had 13 for Saskatoon in the WHL last year. On Gillies, Red Line Report (scouting guide) says, “The object is to score, not beat the puck to death.” The Red Line Report ranked Gillies 31st player in draft.
But he’s clearly a guy that’ll battle and bring size (he’s 6-4). He was telling me a story about his latest facial scar on his nose. Second to last game of the season, some guy hit him from behind, so Colton chased him down the ice, hit the guy, who toppled over. That caused nothing but boards in front of Colton. He went face first into the boards and his face was torn to shreds by his visor.
Since the Wild doesn’t have a soul other than Derek Boogaard who would even contemplate chasing a guy up the rink, now we know why Thompson adores the kid.
As for Manny Fernandez, if you read my previous blog post, I think you know what happened here by now.
Boston was the team the Wild zeroed in on. The Bruins pulled back last night to inquire about Vesa Toskala and Tomas Vokoun. Toronto, which had some interest in Fernandez, traded for Toskala. Florida, which had zero interest in Fernandez, traded for Vokoun.
That left Boston and Phoenix. Wild didn’t want Nick Boynton from Phoenix, I was told.
As for Boston, prior to the draft, somebody from the Bruins came back to the media risers to seek me out. He wanted to know every detail of what Manny Fernandez is like off the ice. He made it very clear to me the Bruins were very concerned about Manny’s off-the-ice reputation as being a difficult teammate “and a bad person.”
It was an awkward conversation for me because I don’t want any part of influencing trades, although I did make clear Fernandez is not a “bad person.”
After the conversation, he led me to believe there was still a chance. The price was clearly the eighth pick, PJ Axelsson (one of Brian rolston’s best friends and a guy that probably would have won the Selke under Jacques Lemaire) and what the Bruins writer heard was a second-round pick. At the end – and the Wild’s table is 50 feet in front of me – Risebrough never got a phone call.
When Boston took Zach Hamill, Risebrough got up, went to Ducks GM Brian Burke, shrugged his shoulders in an “Oh well” sort of way, and executed a previously agreed on deal: If the Wild wasn’t able to trade up to get the eighth pick for Fernandez, Risebrough would trade up to get the 16th pick.
As for Fernandez, the Bruins are still a player, I believe down the line, because they’re goaltending is not good enough. So is Phoenix, I believe. But there’s a very good chance now Fernandez will be a Wild goalie in October, or at least deep into the summer.
That, Risebrough contends, is OK with him because he feels he can get more if he waits for a desperate team. But that also means the Wild will be severely hamstrung when free agency begins.
So I am very surprised Risebrough didn’t make some kind of deal today. Very surprised.
Incidentally, I have a story in tomorrow’s paper on Alexei Yashin and the fact the Wild may go after him if it can get him cheaply (as in $2 million or so) July 1. I think he’ll get closer to $3 million, but we’ll see. The Wild clearly needs a No. 1 or 2 center and I’m pretty sure Todd White will wind up in Florida or Carolina.
Good night. Speak to you tomorrow from Draft Floor. Although, it should be quite boring tomorrow now that the Wild doesn’t pick til the fourth round.
47 Responses to "Day One Aftermath"
Nice work tonight, Russo, and in the days leading up to this as well. From what I could tell reading everything I could find online, you were first on a lot of big moves today. Balancing the blog with the paper can’t be easy, but us nerds in the comments section appreciate the effort.
Oh bummer on that.
Ditto what Sam said. I was disappointed Manny wasn’t traded today but the price to a desperate team down the road could be huge. Plus the message to Manny is clear - you have to be on good behavior to move on. I also think Yashin will sign with the Wild if the money is close. With the C position filled, keeping Manny is more doable. However, unlike last year, if this team as it is shaping up is near the playoffs, DR will have to be a player this year.
First day of the draft and this is all the buzz the Wild can muster!?
Is Risebourgh starting to learn from Kevin McHale? Manny is a trouble child and is hoping to reclaim his spot from Backstrom, but doesn’t have enough sportmanship like KG to care. Both these players only care about one thing and that is the money they are getting for not doing their job. KG should have been sent to Boston, along with Manny. They could be roommmates and figure out their identities.
If I were Patrick Reusse, I would say that Torri Hunnter should be thrown into this mix, but this is where he is wrong. Hunter is a valuable asset to the community and the Twins, both Manny and KG are not. Hunter is a team player and has always been. With KG, he was the team and they couldn’t find anything to compliment him. With Manny, he wasn’t the team, but thought he was, and therefore we can not get rid of him.
Gilles was an OK pick. Size is an issue for the Wild, but this kid will be about as affective as Boogarrd.
If you need a good fit, the guy with the final answer should be JL. He knows hockey and can breed hockey talent. Assitant GM Scouts got nothing on him.
The prospect of Yashin coming over is tantalizing but is anyone else concerned about his sometime too casual attitude on the ice? Is this another move made before Jacques has the chance to chime in? (Moore)
Getting Clark Gillies’ third cousin who has never met him is OK - if we had drafted Bryan Trottier’s third cousin and Mike Bossy’s third cousin.
WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR REGULAR 2ND ROUND PICK??????????????????
Man I have to say that hapless wild are looking more inept then the twolves right now. Come on, you always take the best player available, especially when you have 2 potential top 5 picks fall. Remember Randy Moss anyone? And you trade your 42 pick for some AJ Thelen wannabe? Now you are going to have to pay 2 goalies because you cant pull off a trade. Whats next, oh we dont have money to spend on free agents because we have to pay 2 goalies! the joke is on us wild fans
Jaromir, the Wild’s 2nd rounder went to Anaheim as part of the deal to trade up to get Gilles. Didn’t our 3rd rounder go to LA last year as part of the Demitra deal? For some reason I am thinking we gave LA the first rounder we got from Edmonton for Roli, O’Sullivan, and this year’s 3rd rounder.
Wait, I remember now, the Wild’s 3rd rounder this year went for Moore.
One - I enjoy reading Russo’s posts more than I enjoy reading his pieces in the paper. Nothing like a little candor.
Two - we had two 2nd rounders, the 42 was a compensation pick for Thelen. We also had the 50th which is now owned by Dallas - perhaps thrown in the Skoula for Mitchell trade?
Three - I love the Gilles pick. How many of us bitched, bemoaned, and bellyached that we weren’t big enough or tough enough to compete with the Ducks? This guy has Dustin Penner written all over him. If the Wild can develop a nose for the net, then maybe… Getzlaf?
Four - Good luck to Mcdonagh, White, & O’Brian. Montreal picked Fischer last year so there’s a potential for a MN blue line for one of the most storied franchises in sports. White should spend some time with Justin Morneau, because I don’t think anyone in the Twin Cities could convince him that he’ll enjoy playing in Vancouver. O’Brian fell a bit, but Ottawa’s a great place to land and a great franchise with a new great GM.
Don’t forget James Sheppard - all 6-2 & 205 pounds of him - scored 84 points in 66 games in the Quebec Majors. (Insert Donald Trump voice here:) “He’s Huuooggge”.
Sure enough…
Nico Sacchetti from Virginia MN goes to Dallas with the 50th pick.
It would be nice to pick up at least one MN kid during the draft.
Congrats to the Minnesota kids. I hate to sound negative, but the hype on O’Brian baffles me. His skating style is very unique. It’s almost as if he lumbers around the rink. That being said, I’m no scout and probably don’t have the ability to recognize upside in a player.
I don’t know enough on Gillies to comment. If anything, they drafted a good hard-working boy with the Canadian will to win. That being said, I wonder why they passed up on that Russian kid. I think he is going to make an immediate impact in the NHL.
The Russian kid is going back to Russia next year. That and the ruckus trying to get Russians out of the Russian league (Malkin etc…). That and the fact that he takes two to three games off for every game he plays (which, from what I know about Jacques, might get him into a little trouble).
Too many what-ifs for DR.
And with the 110th pick, the Minnesota Wild select…
Justin Falk 6-5, 215# Left Wing from Spokane.
Sensing a pattern here?
Sorry, He’s defence with a left handed shot.
From the Boston Harold:
“A deal for the 32-year-old Fernandez seemed very much alive all day yesterday, with one source saying the trade would have taken place Thursday night except that the B’s insisted winger Glen Murray - and his $4.15 million contract each of the next two years - go to the Wild. Salary-wise, it would be a nearly perfect swap, with Fernandez having two years left at $4.33 million per season.”
If in fact that was what scuttled the trade, I think that it was a smart move not to do anything. We basically would have traded first round draft picks, picked up an over-paid 34 year old and still had very little room under the projected cap. Not to fret, Manny will be gone by the end of the Summer. I guess it’s going to be a player-for-player trade that is to be expected, though.
Interesting take on the Wild’s pick, Gillies- I read in one of the papers that prior to the draft Tommy Thompson was asked if he could draft any one player in the draft, who would it be? You guessed it, Gillies. Normally I would chalk that up to the typical, “We were surprised he was still available” B.S. we hear in every draft, regardless of which sport it is. But what stuck out to me as we was quoted saying that before the draft started. So, Either he’s going to be made out as a genius or a raving lunatic in about two to three years. Only time will tell.
From the Western League website.
Justin Falk. 62 games; 3 goals; 12 asst.; 82 penalty minutes; +11.
Spokane went 36 - 28 - 4 last season.
Born 1988
Uhhhh, that’s the “Boston Herald” and not some guy named Harold from Boston. I need more coffee….
Ballgame your on the money.. Thank god Dougie Euro is finally letting Tommy Thompson do his thing. Big Canadian kids who can skate and knock some one on their butt. Thank God! I’m so fed up with Nummelin, Foster, Skoula and Overpaid Kim Johnsson. That this is a breath of fresh air.
I can’t stand some of the commentary of people wanting more flash and no smash. Your the same people that we’re walking out of the X after game 3 like you had been hit by a Mack truck, please learn from this mistake in planning and allow the Wild to do so as well.
Do you think Calgary hired Mike Keenan to inject a Euro passing finesse game??
In the fifth round, the Wild take Cody Almond out of Kelowna in the WHL. 6′-1″, 200 lbs center and shoots left.
ballgame, good call on Cherepanov. Some of us were wondering on the previous stream why the Wild passed him up. I think they’re gradually putting together a team that has both finesse and size — in the usual pragnmatic way.
On a completely different note, this whole Nashville disintegration is weird to watch. I wonder how long the Vokoun deal was really in the works? This was a solid team and now…
Thanks becky (& Matt) - I’m kind of watching this Nashville thing like a car crash - one eye on the road and one eye wandering towards the shoulder.
It bothers me that there are the same tired comparisons to the Randy Moss pick whenever some one drops out of the good graces of the scouting troups. That whole “draft the best player on the board” won’t work for a team like us or New Jersey where a system is in place and there are specific needs. Look at Esposito - we’ve got too many guys like that and too many needs to risk picking up this guy.
WTF??? What is Vancouver doing?? First they pick up Patrick White and now Taylor Mattson (Holy Angels).
Are they just drafting out of spite?
Hey ballgame, who died and made you Doug Woog? Keep drafting those AJ Thelen clones and see how far it gets this team. Oh yeah there will be another episode of wild brass crying that they should have drafted someone else instead of Thelen. Pay attention, history might teach you something.
Hey ballgame, who died and made you Doug Woog? Keep drafting those AJ Thelen clones and see how far it gets this team. Oh yeah there will be another episode of wild brass crying that they should have drafted someone else instead of Thelen. Pay attention, history might teach you something.
Well it looks like we can shelf the Manny talk for a while boys. I like the draft so far. They didn’t have many picks but, I don’t see them wasting them. Big hard nosed guys is exactly what we need, we have finese and speed now we need the grit. The Star Tribune had a nice article today about a few of the previous draft picks and where they stand. Seems we may have a few more big guys from previous drafts showing up on the roster this year. All in all we got bigger and tougher and we needed that.
man, DR is itching to be fired. last year was mostly a failure for all the money we spent. now we obsessively draft size over skill when we just signed kassian and madsen? i’ll tell you right now, esposito (uh, playmaking center anyone?) is who we needed and we will all laugh at this pick in a couple of years. then we couldn’t offload manny? that is ridiculous. i’d love axelson and a couple of draft picks, but murray and his 45pts in 59 games last year sounds pretty nice too. wtf? we won’t be much improved over last year, i fear, and that is unacceptable…
Not bad only one Euro drafted by the Wild. Doug Rise-euro might need to go over and watch Trencin Elite skate on a 400 yard sheet of ice to handle the withdrawls.
I love Brian Burke’s andwer last night when asked if he would be taking a Euro withthe picks they recieved from the Wild ” Next Question!”
YASHIN?!? God help me.
I will also be very disappointed if we sign him.
I do not want him “showing” Gaby how to act or conduct himself, or in any way influence his game/attitude.
And a Yash/Pav/Gaby line might score some goals, but JL would have an aneurysm watching them not come back on defense.
If this goes down I will not be a happy camper.
Man, you guys are crying like the season starts tomorrow and theirs no draft next year. Yes, it would have been nice to move up yesterday. Didn’t happen…so what? It shouldn’t be all that shocking to many of you that there still may be trade in the works. Maybe, just maybe, Boston wanted to keep their #8 AND THEN deal for Manny after the draft. I’m telling you, there is no way that Manuel and his $4.33m cap hit will be on this roster by training camp, much less by July 1 free agency.
Overall, I am pleased with the draft. I would have liked Nick Petrecki but Gillies is something we need. I’m in the minority here, in that I am happy we didn’t select Esposito. We don’t need a Daigle.
The one thing that I, like many others, was unsatisfied with was the inability for DR to get a trade for Manny. I understand that he is being patient and waiting for a team to become desperate but keeping Manny does not help us come free agency. I have read (sorry, I can’t remember where) that we could of had Boynton and a couple picks from PHX.–I think Boynton would be great for us.
I certainly hope that DR will be able to unload Manny and either get a mean defensive dman from the trade, or be able to sign one with the cap room that would be opened by Manny’s departure.
With the Wild hoping for a “desperate” team to come along and answer their prayers is just a dream. Every GM knows that Manny is no longer the starter there, makes over 4 million each of the next 2 seasons, has a troubled past about being a bad teammate, and is hurting the Wilds’ chances on grabbing some free-agents.
Why would any GM in the NHL give up a big amount for that kinda player. The Wild have to realize the other team they trade with wants to dump some salary also.
Hey DR, take your best offer and run with it, or else Mannys contract is gonna strap yor off-season moves.
Hey Barry Melrose! Who died and made you Barry Melrose? Good grief. Gillies is not another AJ Thelen type: he’s a hard worker with dedication to his game. That’s something Thelen never had. Just like Cherepanov. Not every forward or top pick has to be a big scorer - they just need to do their job, and Gillie’s job will be to A) protect his linemates, and B) wreak havoc in the opponent’s end. Few big power forwards can skate, and sometimes they take awhile before they become offensive threats. Take the evil one, Todd Bertuzzi. It wasn’t until his 7th year in the league that he had his offensive breakout. Same with Bill Guerin - 8 years to break the 50-point barrier. Cam Neely, the guy that invented the power forward position? His 4th season (same for Gary Roberts and Keith Primeau). It’s just so hard finding a big man who can skate, and a lot of times it’s better to have a big guy who can skate and take the pressure off the smaller guys. Wouldn’t it be great to have the Big Guy from Nintendo Ice Hockey skating as fast as the Skinny Guy? Gillies is like that.
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