Wild Building Plan

In the NHL more than any other league except the NBA the key to building a championship team seems to be that you have to be terrible for three or four years in a row. Don't believe me? Check out the Chicago Blackhawks, they were awful for years, now may be the most talented team in the league with a very younge core, see also the Penguins. Or build your team through free-agency and getting lucky in late rounds of the draft, however you'll only get the best players if they think there's a good chance the team can take the cup. This would be how the Detroit Red Wings have done it. They've picked up some nice free agents and done a fantastic job finding gems in late rounds of the draft, see Henrik Zetterberg.

With these thoughts in mind I'm getting increasingly frustrated with my favorite team, the Minnesota Wild. At the start of the season the team looked terrible, their worst start in the team's long and storied history. I was already looking ahead to who could be the number one or two pick in the draft, get them in a Wild jersey and let's play!

Then for a while they started playing better yet continued to lose games, which was nice. To take a line from Lou Nanne, the best case senario for the Wild is to look good losing every night. A team that is very close to being good, just needing that final piece of the puzzle.

However now the Wild have won three in a row and starting to climb out of the basement of the Western Conference. I'm worried that the Wild will once again finish around 9th or 10th in the Western Conference, missing the playoffs, yet doing well enough to not get a real top-notch talent in the draft. The Wild have shown no ability to evaluate talent, the last player worth a dime they drafted was Patrick O'Sullivan, who the unfortunately traded to the Kings for a year or two of Pavol Demitra. I have no confidence in the Wild finding a gem and then coaching him into an NHL star.

I think it's time for the Wild to trade Backstrom, get a couple picks and prospects. Then we can plug Josh Harding in for goalie, hopefully losing many games while he goes through the learning curve. Then we draft the next Ovechkin and bust out the trophy polish home-boy!

Go Wild, wait no, go whoever is playing the Wild.