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What the Minnesota Wild Rebuild Should Look Like

By Lake Martin

ANAHEIM, CA - NOVEMBER 5: Jordan Greenway #18 of the Minnesota Wild skates during the game against the Anaheim Ducks at Honda Center on November 5, 2019 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Debora Robinson/NHLI via Getty Images)
ANAHEIM, CA - NOVEMBER 5: Jordan Greenway #18 of the Minnesota Wild skates during the game against the Anaheim Ducks at Honda Center on November 5, 2019 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Debora Robinson/NHLI via Getty Images) /
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The Minnesota Wild earned a comeback win in Anaheim Tuesday night and almost completed a comeback in a terrible game in San Jose last night, but that’s not the focus today. Today, we lay the foundation for Bill Guerin and the Minnesota Wild rebuild.

TRAVERSE CITY, MI – SEPTEMBER 10: General manager of the Minnesota Wild Bill Guerin does an interview between periods of the Chicago Blackhawks and the Minnesota Wild game during Day-5 of the NHL Prospects Tournament at Centre Ice Arena on September 10, 2019, in Traverse City, Michigan. (Photo by Dave Reginek/NHLI via Getty Images)
TRAVERSE CITY, MI – SEPTEMBER 10: General manager of the Minnesota Wild Bill Guerin does an interview between periods of the Chicago Blackhawks and the Minnesota Wild game during Day-5 of the NHL Prospects Tournament at Centre Ice Arena on September 10, 2019, in Traverse City, Michigan. (Photo by Dave Reginek/NHLI via Getty Images) /

In Tuesday’s Gone Wild Mailbag, after the slow and unmotivated October, I declared GonePuckWild’s campaign to restructure, #LoseForLafreniere, and #BombForByfield. Today I outline what this process will look like.

First, one ground rule:

While we recognize that to properly tank for the best lottery odds you have to finish in the basement of the league’s standings, GonePuckWild will always want the Minnesota Wild to win/compete as often as they can. This is obviously counter-intuitive to the process, but we want the Wild to build experience for the youth while restructuring the roster. Plus, since the beginning of the Lottery Odds system, the team with the greatest possibility to be the “Winner Seed” has won only six times out of the twenty-five opportunities. That said, from 1995 to 2012, teams couldn’t move up more than four spots in the order. So, a better metric would be: teams with the greatest possibility to be the “No. 1 pick” has kept the first overall pick eleven out of the twenty-five times, eight of which happened in the 1995-2012 range. So it’s not a requirement for the Wild to finish dead last. We can at least enjoy ourselves a little bit. Plus, there’s a threshold that, if the Wild fall within (picks 7-14), their first-round pick could be used as a currency to buy a more NHL ready prospect that otherwise wouldn’t get time with a better team (like the Leafs, Bruins, Flames, Lightning).

So in summary: We’re not going to be upset if the Wild win, but we’re not going to be THAT upset if they lose.

Alright, let’s rebuild the Wild

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