Last-Minute Wild Changes, News, Reports Before Game 1

The Minnesota Wilds have dropped multiple updates ahead of tonight's season opener against the Nashville Predators, including Jesper Wahlstedt speaking out on his expectations for this season. An update on Charlie Schramm was he is no longer with this Minnesota Wild team, and Jon Hines speaking about Maxim Shabanov and the reason he is on the first line with Kirill Kaprizov. Folks, we have a lot of news to break down here in today's video ahead of a very, very exciting season. And if you want to stay up to date with everything going on with this Minnesota Wild team here throughout this season, and for a long, long time, we're going to have all of your news right here. Be sure to drop a sub on the channel and join us here and help us get to our goal of 6,000 subscribers. Your support's been incredible. I appreciate all you guys for tuning into these videos every single day. And I want to start things off with Charlie Schramm. When after real seemingly like he was going to crack the opening day roster, he did, but ultimately was assigned to Iowa. And it really makes a lot of people wonder why. But I think right now, after looking at it, after kind of taking it all in, it makes a little bit more sense as to the reason. But as I said, you know, initially he was on this opening day roster. You look at the forwards here. He is just about in the middle there, I mean, five down just below Eric's neck and was listed here as a player that was going to be on this team. But considering how busy this team has been, considering how, you know, full I guess this lineup really is right now on the offense, it kind of makes sense. And you see this here from Joe Smith giving the lines for, you know, the likely lines I should say for the opener against the Predators tonight. Kaprizov, Yurov, Shabanov, Coleman, Eric's neck, Boldy, Trenton Hartman, Brink, Nick Foligno, Michael McCarron, Marcus Foligno, with Nico Sturm being the extra forward. It really didn't make sense to have Charlie Strammel just sitting in the press box. The biggest thing of this wild team want to make sure for him is that he's getting in games. He's not sitting down. He's making sure that any given opportunity he has to get into this lineup, he will be ready. And if he were to be sitting in the press box, that would not be the case at all. So although, you know, he was on the opening day roster, there was really no way I think already had their lines pretty much built since the beginning, if not earlier in the preseason. So, you know, looking at that, I guess it is a reason that makes sense. Although I think we all wanted to see Charlie Strammel here in this lineup tonight, even though 44 points on 37 games should give you the opportunity once again, I think that getting him accustomed to the pro game a little bit more, and obviously he's looked great throughout the preseason, throughout training camp, getting him in the lineup in the AHL, seeing how he produces down there. And if that performance is deserving of a call up to the NHL, the wild we know are going to make some room for him wherever it may be. So that's the answer for there about Charlie Strammel being sent down to the AHL. And maybe, you know, they look at another defense if Brock Faber is going to be out for quite some time, which at least right now, it certainly seems like, but with someone else being out in Phillip Gustafson for a little bit, about a month now, Jesper Wahlsted has spoken out on what his expectations are for this season as he's getting the net tonight and he's going to really, you know, put a show on, or let's hope he's going to put a show on for this first month to Bill Garrett, to John Hines, and saying, hey, I want to be the guy here every single day. And Wahlsted said this, now it's not about making the team, it's about, okay, I want to be the guy. I want to play every night. I want to be more consistent and give the team a good chance to win every single night. And this is the opportunity for him right now. Not any point last season was Wahlsted given this type of opportunity. And obviously we want Phillip Gustafson to be healthy as soon as possible. But this is going to be a very good opportunity for Jesper Wahlsted to show this team what he's really made of. That he can be in the net every single game that, you know, he wants to be every single game they need him to be. You can trust him and with Phillip Gustafson, him on a new deal now, there's a lot of speculation that whether or not they trade him or Wahlsted, it's going to be difficult to keep both. And we're going to touch on something like that in just a moment here. Wahlsted last year, at least to me, and I think to a lot of other people as well, proved that he can be in net in any given day. We saw him last year in the playoffs, just about every single game, all except one, be in the net. And he locked things down. He was giving the Wilds opportunities to win, even when there were some games they didn't play the best, he gave them that opportunity. And a huge bounce back from him last season, a 9-16 save percentage and a 2-58 goals against. Very good. And now giving him what will likely be more games than 35 this season, it's going to be exciting to see where things go from here. And especially looking at the postseason, how things go in the playoffs, it's going to be a big opportunity for Jesper Wahlsted, not just in net, but also when looking at the contracts. Because keep in mind, he is in the final year of his deal. He is an RFA, so there's no worries about letting him walk or having him walk and wanting to go elsewhere. There's no doubt in my mind that the Wilds are going to extend him. But you want to see what he's doing this year first, before you actually get him under contract. And you know, maybe also see what Phillip Gustafson can do, if you can move him, which I think on the contract he is, wouldn't be very hard to move. We know there's a lot of teams looking for goalies and the Wilds have two very good ones. And I think it's up to them who they want to see stay and how performances go for the beginning of the season, especially Jesper Wahlsted for this first month. So give me your thoughts on Wahlsted here tonight as well. Not just tonight, but I guess the first month really. Do you think he's going to own this net? Do you think he's going to take advantage of this opportunity and really phase Phillip Gustafson out maybe, I guess is one way of putting it. Let me know your thoughts on that down below, because I think there's no rush right now. There's no, you know, there's no worry about it right now whatsoever, but it is something to seriously think about. Now, I think the biggest thing I'm excited for is when looking at the depth chart, looking at tonight's alliance and really seeing how things go ahead of this game. Maxim Shabanov on line one with Daniil Yurov and Kirill Kaprizov, a very different look than what we saw last season with Ryan Hartman and Matt Zuccarello. A lot of people love it. Me being one of them. I absolutely love this combination to at least try it right now, but there was also a lot of people being, you know, haters, I guess we can say not from the Wilds fan base, but from other organizations across the NHL saying that this is one of the worst first lines in the NHL and I'm wholeheartedly disagree. Obviously, Maxim Shabanov last season didn't have the best of performances with the Islanders, but he's a very, very good player and we know what kind of player he is from just his stats over the history of his career. Last season in the KHL, I should say his last season in the KHL, rather 67 points in 65 games. He's a very good player. Only 18 of 44 last year, but having the chemistry he does with players who played in the KHL before in Daniil Yurov, in Kirill Kaprizov, you're getting that chemistry already, even without these guys playing together yet in a real game, I guess we could say. You see this from John Hines as the reason why he was comfortable doing it and it's because there can be some chemistry. There's been signs of it and I think Shabby has done a good job of learning. He's one of the few new guys that we have and his intricacies of how we want him to play, communication between him and Kirill and Daniil Yurov has been good. I've seen improvement from him in all of those areas as well. So giving them an opportunity there, I think it's something as soon as we signed Maxim Shabanov, we all knew that was going to happen at some point, whether it was to start, whether it was somewhere throughout the season. But I like the idea of starting it there because if you start off hot with this line, you keep it rolling. If you don't, you can make changes early. This is the best time to do it and I mean, we always know that having Ryan Hartman in the middle with Daniil Yurov, you know, back down on the third line, we've seen it work before. We want Daniil Yurov to be a number one center. I think this is a good opportunity for him to do so with, like I said, the depth chart with the lines, how they're looking and especially with the offense that's going to be needed with at least right now for the time being for maybe a couple months, Brock Faber being out. So, folks, give me your thoughts on this lineup as well, specifically that first line with Maxim Shabanov. What are your expectations from him to start this season? Let me know down below. But that is all I have here in this video. If you did enjoy it, give it a like, hit the sub button as well. I'm signing out though. Thank you for watching. Hope you have a great day. See you later.