Justin (@deast2004) – My name is Justin Bakke and I am an avid hockey fan at all levels of the game. I grew up in Duluth watching Duluth East and the UMD Bulldogs play. I spent quite a few nights at the DECC watching UMD in the pre-championship years and love what the program has become. Also, don’t mention the 1996 State Tournament to me, it still stings. I grew up playing hockey which included playing in the Lester Park
and Duluth East system through Bantams. I was a North Stars fan before their departure when I was seven years old. I still have pictures of me wearing my Dad’s North Stars jersey as a kid. I became an
Avalanche fan because of Joe Sakic, but quickly switched my allegiance back to Minnesota when the Wild arrived in 2000. With this, I help run a few social media accounts. This includes the Kaprizov Kountdown, UMD Bulldogs Pipeline, co-admin of Wild Prospects & Young Players, and co-host the Sound the Foghorn Podcast. The Kountdown page ended up being followed by Kirill Kaprizov himself, and was featured in a Michael Russo article. Now I have a family that includes a wife and three kids. The
beginning stages of teaching my kids to skate have begun, as I look to pass on the passion and Minnesota tradition on to them, and hopefully instill the love of hockey.
Joey (@BravetheWild) – I’m 41 years old, and have been a fulltime hockey fan since the 1990-1991 season, particularly the North Stars magical run to the Stanley Cup Finals. Like most of us, I was devastated to see my favorite team in the world move away, and was equally frustrated by being teased with the possibilities that didn’t work out with the Oilers, Jets, and Whalers. June 1997 will always have a special place in my heart, as the original birth of the Minnesota Wild. I’ve always seen myself as a radio host and a writer, and I eventually got the Brave The Wild Podcast started in August 2008, and have been doing it ever since. I became a late bloomer when it comes to hockey writing when I joined Gone Puck Wild just this past fall, not sure what I was waiting for, but better late than never. I also proudly write for mnwprospects, covering the QMJHL and BCHL, keeping up with Wild prospects in those respective leagues.
Let’s assume that we should count positions, not roster spots. You’ll need several players to play center throughout a game. We’ll give them a Kwik Trip gift card (to share) for the work, and give them a second card for playing both offense and defense. Do the same for LW, RW, RD, LD. You’ve given away 10 cards to cover the skater portion of your roster. You need goalies, but since they only contribute defensively, they need to split a single Kwik Trip gift card. You’re now at 11 cards, with 4 of those going to defense. That’s 36%, and a long explanation to say that I don’t think 40% of the salary going to defense is that crazy Oh, and please don’t trade Dumba!
chunk of money saved between them. There are quite a few intangibles on both sides to consider. I am not so confident that we trade Dumba by the expansion draft. I felt like the teams that would be obvious trade partners filled the void where he would have fit in. Teams like Vegas and St. Louis. With the flat cap situation it makes it even tougher moving him. Unless a team comes with what Guerin really wants, we don’t have to trade Dumba. We can slow play it if we want to. However, I do feel like he will be moved
at some point. I also believe that with trading Donato and Kunin, we have made it easier on ourselves on who to protect in the Seattle expansion process. Instead of possibly losing one of those guys for nothing,
we got picks for them. We can choose the 8 skaters and 1 goalie route and protect most of our current best assets, including our top four defensemen. We will still lose a decent player, but the trades made it easier on ourselves in my opinion.
We would like to thank our panel for their outstanding well-thought out responses to all of our questions, so to Ricky, Jodi, Aaron, Justin, Joey and Brian, thank you!
We’d also like to hear from you too, our readers! Send us your answer any of these questions on Twitter @CreaseAndAssist or in the comment section below and we’ll respond back!
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