Thursday, July 5, 2012

Feeling Minnesota: Wild Land Parise & Suter

When free agency began on July 1st the two biggest names on the market were New Jersey forward Zach Parise and Nashville defenseman Ryan Suter.

It's not every day that two players going into their prime become free agents. It was expected that with these two hitting the market numerous NHL teams would be vying for their services.

That's exactly what happened as both players were high in demand once free agency began. However instead of rushing into a decision as to where they would spend the next part of their NHL careers both Parise and Suter took their time researching their options.

The wait for Parise and Suter to choose which team they were going to play for took social media by storm as hockey fans would anxiously check Twitter for updates wondering who which team get their services.

Yesterday we got our answer has both Zach Parise and Ryan Suter decided to sign a 13 year contract to play for the Minnesota Wild.

You read that correctly. Zach Parise and Ryan Suter decided they wanted to play for the Minnesota Wild.

Not Detroit, Not Pittsburgh, and Not Philadelphia.

The Minnesota Wild.

How big of a deal is this?

Getting Parise and Suter to play for the Wild is the equivalent of asking the two prettiest girls in high school to the prom and both of them saying yes.

It's a big deal for the Twin Cities because when contracts like this are given to athletes it's usually to keep a player who came up with a team and grew into a superstar. Not to bring in a superstar from another team.

Minnesota teams never spend big money to land the two best free agents. If anything our best players are usually traded away right before they become free agents or when the rebuilding of a franchise begins.

I've lived in this market for 14 years and in my time the biggest free agent acquisition was when the Minnesota Vikings signed Pro Bowl Left Guard Steve Hutchinson from the Seattle Seahawks.

While that turned out to be a great signing for the Vikings the addition of Parise and Suter have to potential to have a much bigger impact on the Minnesota sports scene.

In Parise the Wild is getting a heart and soul player who gives a maximum effort night in and night out. He was the captain of the New Jersey Devils and led them to the Stanley Cup Finals.

Parise has reached the 30 goal mark five times in his career and he kills penalties. Parise is willing to go in the corners and do the dirty work that produces scoring chances. For a team that finished dead last in goals scored last year this is the type of player the Wild desperately needed.

With Suter the Wild get a puck moving defenseman who has reached the 30 point mark the last five seasons. Suter can play 25-30 minutes a night against the opposition's top line and has the ability to shut down their top goal scorers.

If you look at the last few teams that have won the Stanley Cup each of them had a defenseman that ate up a lot of minutes on the ice, produced offensively and shut down the opposition.

In the NHL you don't only win games with players like Zach Parise and Ryan Suter. You win games because of players like Zach Parise and Ryan Suter.

While it's no secret that the Wild was going to make a huge push to sign both players when they became free agents I didn't expect either one to come to Minnesota to play hockey.

I felt that if Parise left New Jersey he would sign with a team that had a chance to win the Stanley Cup in the near future. While the Wild have a lot of young prospects in their system they are still developing as players and are probably a few years away from making an impact.

My feeling was that Minnesota was three years away from being the type of team that could land Zach Parise as a free agent. I thought if Parise left New Jersey it would be to join the Penguins and play with Sidney Crosby.

I felt the Wild had a decent chance to land Ryan Suter until Nicklas Lidstrom announced his retirement from the Detroit Red Wings. With over $20 million in cap space I thought the Red Wings would secure the services of Suter as GM Ken Holland usually gets the player he wants.

Instead a process that usually takes at most a day to decide drug out three days long. At that point my feeling was that both Parise and Suter wanted to play together. Parise confirmed that thought on Tuesday night in an interview with Josh Rimer on "Night Cap".




Later that night a tweet by Brian Lawton said that Ryan Suter would be playing next year for the Minnesota Wild.

With these developments Minnesota hockey fans anxiously held their breath hoping this was true. A little after 11 AM word came down that Ryan Suter had agreed to terms with Minnesota. Minutes later Zach Parise joined him as his new teammate.

The most common question asked after these two signings is are the Wild now a legit Stanley Cup contender?

The answer to that question is No. At least not yet.

The two best teams in the Western Conference are Los Angeles and Vancouver. Assuming St. Louis is for real they are probably the best team in the Central Division.

After those three teams the rest of the West is a jumble.

Detroit is in transition after losing Lidstrom to retirement. Nashville still has Shea Weber to anchor the blueline but a lot of his success came because of playing with Suter.

Chicago still has issues with their goaltender and the need for a second line center. San Jose's window looks to be closing and nobody knows what to make of Phoenix with their ownership issues.

Meanwhile of all the teams in the Western Conference that missed the playoffs last year nobody has improved more than Minnesota. I won't call them a Stanley Cup contender yet because we don't know how the young players will respond and adapt to playing in the NHL.

I thought the last couple years the Wild were good enough to be a playoff team mainly because they played in the weakest division in the NHL, the Northwest. What prevented that from happening was injuries and lack of quality depth.

With the additions of Parise and Suter along with the signings of Zenon Konopka, Torrey Mitchell, and Jake Dowell the Wild now have quality depth on the 3rd and 4th lines.

Because of this their core of young players will be given time to develop in the AHL instead of being rushed to the NHL before their ready. This is the same way Detroit and New Jersey handle their young players.

Not a bad blueprint to follow. 

While I don't believe the Minnesota Wild are a Stanley Cup contender I do believe they are a playoff team and I do believe they are good enough to put together a playoff run.

As the Los Angeles Kings showed us this past spring all you have to do is get to the post-season to make something special happen again.

More importantly Minnesota's NHL team is finally relevant and good enough to be noticed on a national level. All it took was the signing of a former member of the Fighting Sioux and a former Badger.

I think Minnesota hockey fans are OK with this.

Welcome to the State Of Hockey Zach and Ryan.