Looking at the stars has brought back old, wild memories – Minnesota Wild

Watching the Dallas Stars face the Vegas Golden Knights in the playoffs brought back one of my favorite memories.

I will always remember that memory fondly, and the Minnesota Wild were part of it. At 10:00 my friend Lucas Leifermann called me and told me he had tickets to the Wild game that night. The Wild were playing the Stars when Dallas first returned to Minnesota, but I had to work at Hy-Vee.

I knew my mom and my sister were going to the game. My mother got tickets, but they could only get one other ticket. My sister loves Mike Modano, so of course the girls came along. My brother and I couldn't go. But I had a friend who had my back, so I called Hy-Vee, and I said, Hey, I can't come to work today, and they said, 'Well, you're getting fired.

I was 17 at the time and said, OK, later. I'm not coming in. I'm going to the hockey game. Sorry, Hy-Vee.

I bought separate tickets from my mother and sister. However, fate intervened and I spent that day with my family. Of the 18,000 seats, Lucas and I sat behind my sister and mother. We watched the Wild crush the Dallas 6 donut. Growing up playing hockey was life in my family. My sister and mother were bigger fans than me and my brother, who played. Without them we could never have been successful.

I only bring up that event because I will always be a fan of the Dallas Stars. They remain the North Stars in my heart. Furthermore, I see some similarities in Dallas that are similar to things happening in the Wild. I also see some things the Wild need to do to be as competitive as the Stars have been recently.

The Stars are contenders almost every year. They won three conference championships in the early 2000s. Jake Ottenger is solid and looks a lot like what I see in Jesper Wallstedt. However, Wallstedt will do better in the long run. He's had some questionable years, but it's our job to question these guys. I see them playing the same way. They are confident and belong to an elite class.

Minnesota and Dallas are all in. Whether it's management or the players, the Wild and Stars don't sign long contracts if they aren't in it for the long haul. That's what I love about what Bill Guerin does. He has a core group of guys who can put the puck in the net and are responsible defensively.

They can also be leaders for the young core and teach them how to be pros. Ryan Hartman and Mats Zuccarello aren't going to ask for a trade next season; they are in it for the long haul. Minnesota's players and management are committed to them, creating a core group of guys who can show the young players how to be pros.

The Wild have also shown potential free agents that they can make Minnesota their home, professionally and with family in mind. The Twin Cities can be a place where their wives and children can comfortably call home. We occasionally forget the people in the players' lives who aren't performing on the ice. If you have a close family member who is going through a difficult time, do you always perform 100% at your job? No one can do that without taking a hit in some other area of ​​your professional life, at some level.

The Wild have a young core to build on. They have Matt Boldy, Marco Rossi, Kirill Kaprizov and the young Russians who are currently getting used to the US. Walstedt is the future of the net. Minnesota has a nice group of young defensemen that are developing. They're not quite ready for the NHL yet, but they're making progress.

The Wild will have some money left in free agency next season, especially if the cap goes up by $4 or 5 million. Minnesota could use that for some solid players. To take the next step, the Wild need to get some players to compete. The Stars and Wild are different franchises with identical roots. I will always be a Dallas Stars fan as my 1b, in part because Dallas built its team the way Minnesota should.

Look at how many front offices build their teams. It is not often that the vision of management and the players for the future are aligned. There will be bumps and hiccups along that road. Remember that the night before sunrise is always darker. The Wild have a tight-knit group looking at the same situation and preparing themselves mentally and physically to produce the best hockey team.

The Wild have been handicapped in recent seasons by the buyouts of Ryan Suter and Zach Parise, which shows absolute dedication to this team. Guerin had to fill roster spots with almost no money, so it would have been difficult to produce winning seasons, but he did. The Wild were a winning team until this season, which is a challenge to create in their cap environment.

Albert Einstein said that if you have failed at something, you have never tried anything difficult. Failure offers new opportunities to succeed despite setbacks. I'd wager that one in three general managers in the league could have produced winning teams with the financial burden the Wild faced. The darkness is almost over.

With cap restrictions ending after this season, plus possibly a $4-5 million cap increase, we're talking potentially three superstars. It's the kind of money we can spend by perhaps even adding 80 goals to the current squad. It's not impossible to score 80 goals from three very skilled or even mid-range players.

Now, if you add three superstars to this team, the Wild will be in the top four every year. If Minnesota added a goalie or goalies who could keep their goals average around 2.50 to 2.80, they would have a damn successful hockey team. A team with a good goaltender at the right time can be an 8 seed and leave June with the Stanley Cup.

I'm going to make my first prophecy. In the first two to three years of Wallstedt's coming of age, we will see that he is a Jean-Sbastien Giguere-esque playoff run and get us to the finals or win the whole thing.