This just makes them even more SCARY…

This just makes them even more SCARY…

This just makes the Minnesota Wild even more terrifying as Matt Baldy and Carrill Capri off are on absolute tears getting a huge win against Chicago and sending a message that the Minnesota Wild are here to stay with other players like Brock Faber and Yol Eric making huge impacts. The Wild are set for a huge matchup against Colorado. But so much more is in store for this team and we’re here to break it all down and we’ll start here. Mark look they six win in a row 101 and one in the last 12 games this month. 80 and1 in the last nine, 160 and1 in the last 17 versus the Hawks. That is an insane stat. Gabriov 12th career overtime goal. Baldi and Sterns like incredible performances. Favor oneplus one. Broaddin two assists. Gustoson with that 20 save first period. Mark the Wilder now third in the West, third in their own division as well cuz the only teams that are above them are Colorado and Dallas. I mean, how are you feeling about the way this team has dominated? We’ll get into specific players like Aristoff and Baldi in a bit, but this kind of dominance, I don’t think we could have anticipated, especially with a few guys being banged up. I mean, that’s the biggest thing looking at the record over Wolves at the past month. This Wild team has been on fire and you’re getting production, not only from your star players, but everyone in the lineup, including your starting goalender, your backup goalender, the defenseman, everyone is chipping in. And that is a good sign because if you’re on a hot streak because of one goalie, then you can look at it and say, “Hey, if he cools down, but if he cools down, you have another goalender directly behind him, Josh, what we’re seeing with this Wild team in a very tough division, the worst division to be in in the NHL. We know the teams ahead of them. This is going to be hard to fight. But the thing is, you don’t need to play these teams right away if you’re going to finish high in the standings. So, with the way the Wild playing, I don’t see them slowing down. I think I said the exact same thing two weeks ago in a video. This Wild team is building something special with all their young talent and seeing how they’re progressing is just awesome. It really is. It’s so cool, fascinating to watch this team again. The goalending has been phenomenal and without Philip Gustoson in this last game. I mean, this this was not as close as it would have been. Again, a 20 save first period. Nuts from him. And you know, you just have like to give him a break. Oh, let’s just go to Walstead who leads the league in save percentage and shutouts. Like crazy stuff right now. But I do want to mention quickly before we get into the guys, we did say, you know, a few guys are banged up. Now, as the recording of this video, I don’t have an update on Felino, so maybe it’s out by the time you’re watching this, but the Wild did make a quick move. They called up Nick Abbe Cubell from the Iowa Wild. Of course, Abbe Cubell just joined the Iowa Wild this year after spending some years with the Rangers, the Sabres, Capitals. Any thoughts on A Coupel to maybe add some depth to this lineup, Mark? I know it’s a little small thing, but when guys are banged up, you kind of have no choice. He won a Stanley Cup. He absolutely did. So, let’s move on here now. And I want to talk about, you know, actually, we’ll get into Matt Baldi in just a bit. I want to shout out Brock Faber first. So what you’re looking at right here is Brock Faber’s last month, just the last 30 30-ish calendar days, then going back to October 26. So 31ish days, 15 games in that stretch. 15 points. You know what? Brock Fabra has 15 points this year. Zero points in his first nine games, Mark. 15 points in his last 15 games, including six goals. And maybe the most impressive fact of all is that only four of these points came on the power play. Zero of the goals. Brock Faber was getting a lot of I I don’t if I want to say hate, but a lot of people losing faith in him from other fan bases. Maybe people wanting him to make Team USA, whatever. But he has turned it around completely. And I got to shout out him because yes, the goalending has been incredible. The production from our stars has been incredible. But what Faber has been able to do over this last little while to kind of flip that perception to him around while playing nearly 26 minutes a night over this last month has been awesome to witness. And I mean, the biggest thing is going back to the start of the season, he had a rough start. I can say this as well, but the biggest thing is all of social media was pushing the narrative that this guy wasn’t good. 23 years old with 15 points in 15 games. What we’re seeing out of Brock Faber is exactly what we expected. And Josh, he’s going to continue this. We know how good he is. 23, he’s not even near his prime yet. Seeing people kind of bash on this kid and then seeing what he did after, I love to see the narrative be completely flipped and people looking and saying, “Hey, wow, this guy’s actually really good.” when Wild fans knew this all along. Yeah, absolutely. Like, you know, you saw he was reliable. You knew the points would come. There’s been some flip-flopping of power play units and all this stuff, but the fact is Brock Faber’s getting 5v5 production. He’s getting relied upon and he’s putting up points. It’s like it’s exactly everything we knew Brock Faber could do. And again, I think that contract is going to look like such a steal if it doesn’t already. Like, we’re going to look back at that in a few years and say that this guy’s one of the premier defenseman in the league and he’s getting paid like someone who isn’t. So, really, really good stuff there. But again, Mark, the big story right now is the offensive firepower that the Minnesota Wild have. And you know, again, I guess really the big story is the goalies. Again, like that that sort of is the big thing here. Again, an incredible 34 save performance from Gustoson, but Wallstead leads the league in save percentage. You can see they’re both there first and tied for second in shutouts. Like just ridiculous stuff from them. But you can’t win games if you don’t score goals as good as your goalies are, right? And right now Minnesota has been able to score some goals. Not as much as the other teams like Dallas and Colorado ahead of them, but Minnesota’s been getting the job done. And that’s in large part due to Matt Baldi and Carrill Capriov. And again, we saw the goals last night. Baldi tied it. Capri off won the game in overtime. But John Bugross actually tweeted this out. Look, I know we didn’t like the ESPN broadcast, so I’m not going to comment on that. But I will say this is what he had to say later saying what a star Baldi has become on 50 goal 100 point pace this season. His box out puck protection ability on the wall, playmaking hands, reach shot, do a reddraft in 2019. Not a deep elite draft as it turns out. And Baldi goes one or two. Wild got him at 12. And again, you could argue Jack Hughes goes ahead of him for sure. But Mark, Matt Baldley has been unbelievable. Actually posting identical numbers this year to Kuruka Briov. Both with 14 goals, 14 assists for 28 points. They’re both insane players. And again, you combine their contracts, it doesn’t look too bad. It’s about 12 million averaged out between the two of them. Just makes this even better. And just to top it all off, over the last five games, he has four goals and four assists for eight points. Matt Baldy is turning into like not just like a solid star player, this guy is legit on borderline superstar trajectory at this point. And I think the big thing is, listen, both incredible players. Of course, Kur Capri off is going to get all eyes on him. He is a superstar in this league and so is Matt Baldy. I look back at the Pittsburgh Penguins where you seeing Sydney Crosby, everyone knows all eyes were on him. And if Genny Milin was always almost looked at as an underrated guy, even though a superstar talent, because no one was talking about him because of what Sydney Crosby was doing. And I feel like we’re getting the exact same experience. Of course, most wingers and not centers. But Josh, my big thing is Matt Baldy has really come out as the superstar talent. And that second option on this team, you have Curl on the ice and teams are terrified. But now with Matt Baldy once again not in his prime is coming out and putting up numbers like this. I think you have that one-two punch on the wing where teams cannot just kind of sit off and say, “Hey, wow, we can put our top defensive line against Krill.” Because you have Matt Baldy coming out immediately after Josh. I don’t know if you feel the same way, but I feel like this is the situation that we’re finally seeing the respect for Matt Baldi and there no shot that he does not make Team USA in my opinion. Oh, I mean, he’s got to again with Billy G making a lot of the choices. Look, Garren’s had a lot of comments on, oh, if you’re not big, you can’t pay, this is not the team for you. Which, look, I mean, there’s going to be some guys left off this team that I think is questionable. But right now, I I think you have to have Matt Baldi there, and you have to have other guys like Jason Robertson there, too. It’s going to be a tough decision, but I mean, there’s going to be some bias towards Baldi, as there should be. And the maybe one of the more impressive facets here is like, look, Rossi has been missing some time. Yurov has played some time up in the lineup, but these guys like Baldi, Capri off, and Rossi was a great line to start this year. Then there was some injury stuff. You tried to split up the lines to get some more production and that has been working as well. Now, while Baldi still gets a lot of his points, I think 12 of his points so far this year have come on the power play. The fact that him and Capriov are producing the way they are with these lines kind of changed up with some guys not being healthy, I think is really important to mention, too. Like I I think honestly one of the biggest things for me is just the fact that these guys are to be a star player in this league, you have to be able to drive your line. And I think that’s what we’re really starting to see from Matt Baldi. I mean, we’ve seen it for a little while now. But I think it’s just one of those steps that again at that $7 million contract mark him with Faber and and Capriov and even Rossi for the next few years once he’s back and going at $5 million. Like there’s not many more teams in the league that have that star power, which is crazy to say. like like there are teams that have it, but it’s crazy to say that we’re saying this about the Wild from the forward core to the defense to the goalies and it’s just about fleshing out the rest of the lineup and I don’t know like I think some really big things are coming in here cuz I think the big thing is when you’re looking at the contracts and that’s what I home back on. We see in the preseason we see in the suitor not great contracts but when looking around the NHL a lot of these guys are getting paid a lot went to the Dallas Stars and commanded the world. We see what Colorado did with Marty as well. But I think with what we see with these contracts, with the Cap World raising $10 million a year, this just proves the opportunity and the position they are in with a young core, with a young goender. I mean, we have the wall of St. Paul. We have Gus the bus. These guys on these contracts is what’s going to be the tipping point in my opinion from putting this team into being a first round exit team into a team that’s going to be contending for the Stanley Cup for years to come. It’s it’s going to be tough to navigate, of course, with the Capri off 17 million kicking in next year. There’s no doubt about it. But you’re right, right? These these smaller contracts, these guys outperforming their contracts like Amarcus Johansson, which we’ve seen this year, like even Nico Sturm, hey, he got to wear the hat after the game last night. It was great. And you know, these bottom six guys, even Trenon coming in, stepping up for his teammates. Like there’s there’s role players here that matter. So, we’ll see how Bill Garren navigates these waters with the Cap situation. But there’s a lot of good here and we’re excited about it. Leave your thoughts on the Wild down below cuz that’ll do it for this episode. Hey, if you enjoyed, you made it this far, check to see if you’re subscribed cuz we have content like this coming every single day. I’m Josh Gos, my co-host Mark Pie.

The Minnesota Wild are cooking as of late with incredible play from their stars Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy, plus some stellar goaltending especially from Jesper Wallstedt, and Brock Faber is showing out. Mark Pye and Josh Gosse break down all this and more on this episode of Hat Trick HQ.

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