So, it’s the morning after, and the new era of the Wild feels just a little more complete. GM and coach … in place.

Next up the Draft (and perhaps trades), and then free agency.

By the way, I’m not a Twitter guy yet, although you can follow this blog on there. But after seeing Wolves spokesman Kevin Love breaking the Kevin McHale news on Twitter just after midnight, I may have to scour the Twitter universe for Wild players.

First, here’s the coverage from Wednesday’s paper:

I wrote a Todd Richards profile in Tuesday’s paper, which quotes Richards’ mentor Claude Noel, his former teammate and agent Ben Hankinson and his former teammate Pat Micheletti.

So Wednesday’s main story was more focused on Richards and what he specifically sees from this team. Here’s that story

Here is the notebook on Tommy Thompson still working even with an uncertain job status, Fletcher talking about Gaborik and a note on the search for Richards’ coaching staff.

Here’s Jim Souhan’s column on Richards growing up in the State of Hockey.

After the news conference, Chuck Fletcher immediately turned his attention to the Draft, the trades that surround it and Marian Gaborik.

Fletcher planned to call agent Ron Salcer yesterday, and I’m not sure if that conversation took place. But Salcer is supposed to be back in the country by now. As you can see from Fletcher’s quotes in the paper, he still believes it’ll be a longshot to get Gaborik to stay this late in the game, but he’s certainly going to try.

During my lunch with Fletcher last Thursday, Fletcher said he was in the process on contacting every team in the league to discuss trades. Yesterday, he said that initial process was complete. He’s made some type of communication with all 29 teams.

Remember, Fletcher believes the trade market this summer will be greater than most summers because so many teams have cap issues. In fact, even after the first couple days of free agency is done, Fletcher is willing to go one player short for the first six weeks or so of the summer because he’s so sure you’re going to be able to commit highway robbery in a trade later in the summer.

The theory there: Since teams are allowed to go over the cap in the summer, teams will be forced to shed money, and even good, $3 million type players in late August and September. So Fletcher is willing to take that risk. But he also wants to try to make some moves at the Draft.

“I’ve had a lot of phone calls. I’ve initiated a lot of phone calls. I’ve had communications with every team in the league and probably spoken with the majority of them in terms of what their needs may be and what the interests are from us. That’ll intensify this week. There’s a lot of communication at the Draft, but I would like to maybe have a little more focused approach going into next week. You know, seeing where the fits will be.”

In other words, often times, trades are consummated right at the Draft or on Draft Day. Fletcher wants to have some frameworks in his mind going into Montreal week. So instead of dealing with a broad, 29-team frenzy next week, he’d prefer by Mondayish to have a more focused approach of a handful of teams he’s dealing with on specific ideas.

I’ll write more in specifics next week. Onward…

Richards seems like a good guy. Very poised yesterday, very well-spoken, very understated.

But I hear he’s extremely intense and demanding, too. “Not a lunatic though,” said Noel. “But people say I’m intense and demanding, and I he’s more.”

But, Noel said Richards understands that he can’t treat players the same way in the NHL as he did in the AHL. And Richards concurred.

I like this quote from him on the subject: “There is a difference. There are certain things that you have to handle differently than the American League. But players here still want to get better and grow. You still have to show these players that you’re in it with them. You aren’t going to treat everybody the same, but you’re going to treat everybody fair.”

Here’s another quote that didn’t get in on his philosophy: “You have to allow players to make choices out on the ice. You can’t say you have to be here, you have to be here and you have to be here. The game is played by making choices. Mistakes are going to happen when they make choices and you have to allow them to make mistakes. Mistakes are part of the game. I haven’t seen one team play a perfect game. Now, if they make one, two, three mistakes, coaches have to make them accountable. They can’t make the same mistakes, or there’s a problem. But you have to allow them to make choices, allow them to make reads out on the ice, make a decision to jump , or move the puck there, or to backcheck. It gives them freedom.”

As you saw in the quote rail in the paper, I talked to Dan Bylsma, the Pittsburgh Penguins’ coach, who sounded like he’s been busy since winning a Cup. He’s a huge fan of Richards and Fletcher, and he said the Wild’s got quite the team running them. He expects the Wild to be an aggressive, hard team to play again. I’ll toss quotes up here later.

Hankinson had a good line the other day, saying “Todd’s a really prepared coach, kind of like Dan Bylsma. They’re of the same mold, whether Dan learned it from Todd or they just coach the same style. Very detailed, very prepared, they watch a lot of video, it’s a lot of analysis on the other team.”

And Bylsma said he learned a ton from Richards during his two years as his assistant in Wilkes-Barre.

In fact, Richards admitted he’s often wondered what might have been had he not left the Baby Pens. In other words, he could have been Pittsburgh’s coach, and I know for a fact that to be true. But things work out for a reason, and now he’s taking the reins of his hometown NHL team.

He’ll move back here for the first time since 1989. He and his family visit every summer, but they usually stay in his parents basement.

Lastly, the NHLPA meetings are in Vegas this week, so a lot of NHLers are roaming around Sin City. Derek Boogaard’s there today and gets to meet with the competition committee about the proposed crackdown on fighting. Niklas Backstrom got in yesterday, and tomorrow, he’ll be up for the Vezina Trophy with Tim Thomas and Steve Mason at the NHL Awards Show.

I’m supposed to call Backstrom around 3 today, so I’ll be back with another blog hopefully on his thoughts about playing behind a team that will have its defensemen running wild, no pun intended. Laterz�

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 10:24 am and is filed under Chuck Fletcher, Derek Boogaard, Main, Marian Gaborik, Niklas Backstrom, Todd Richards, Tommy Thompson. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.