Minnesota Wild training camp started this morning in St. Paul announcing the official end of the offseason and the return of Wild hockey. With Bruce Boudreau finally hitting the ice with his new team here’s a few thoughts on what to expect from the first days of camp.
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It’s official, Minnesota Wild Hockey is back. Training camp opened today in St. Paul and the State of Hockey should be excited with the arrival of new faces and the installation of their new head coach’s systems and culture. There’s plenty to talk about so let’s dive right into it head first.
First and foremost the challenge for the Bruce Boudreau and his staff in these first couple of days will be to get the new system of the head coach inserted and working. That most likely means that there will be less free-flow things like scrimmages and more drills and interruptions for teaching moments.
He’s going to have to size this group up and figure out what he can do. As he explained to Michael Russo of the Star Tribune “We’ll be working on things to try to get to know what we’re capable of doing right off the bat. Hopefully by the fourth day we’ve got the basis of everything of how we’re going to play.”
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All indications are the Boudreau isn’t looking to be too radical in his approach to change. His opinion seems to be that positioning will be the big emphasis item and that when he knows the players strengths he can better formulate specifics. But Boudreau seems to want to leverage the stuff the team already knows. A seasoned coach like Boudreau knows that with players and systems it is a good mix of getting the player to conform to a way of playing and molding the system to bring out a player’s strengths.
“We want to ramp it up as quick as we can…a lot of pace in our practice.” – Wild Head Coach Bruce Boudreau, via Michael Russo Star Tribune
Pace seems to be an emphasis right now. As he explains to Russo “We want to ramp it up as quick as we can…a lot of pace in our practice.” This is important to the process for so many reasons. Simply Boudreau needs the players playing at their best so they can be prepared for the pace of the season right away, he can see their best to formulate lines, and most of all he needs to evaluate PTO players and other players hoping to make the roster and they’ll need to be at their best to get the best look.
The Wild will be working hard to get ready over the weekend as there will be little time to ramp up. Monday they’ll be playing a neutral site preseason opener against Buffalo at Pegula Arena on the campus of Penn State, and it’ll be a true test. The Sabres should be all hands available as like the Wild they’ll be returning a lot of their talent from the WCH early.
Still don’t expect that the Wild players from the World Cup will be playing, as Boudreau is looking to get them a little bit of a rest. Also expect that most of this early game time action will be reserved for the young guys and other roster hopefuls.
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Sure the Sabres will most likely be doing the same thing, but expect that the level of completion will be the highest some of the younger players have seen. That means players like Alex Tuch and Joel Eriksson-Ek who have never faced NHL or AHL competition they will get their first taste of it. That’s going to be important and very telling to if they can live up to the buildup that says they have a shot at the Minnesota opening day roster.
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Lots more will unfold over the course of camp, but for now this weekend to get things started all eyes will be on how Boudreau does with the team finally on the ice. If you’re looking to check it out yourself the doors at the X will open tomorrow at 9:45 a.m. for an open to the public practice that lasts till 11:15 a.m. My thought is for now just be excited and watch some Wild hockey, the time to start turning a critical eye towards the team might not be till next week. So for now just enjoy it!