Wild – Page 29 – David Shama's Minnesota Sports Headliners

Glen Taylor: Wolves Were Close on Trade

Posted on February 16, 2022 by David Shama

The NBA trade deadline was February 10 and Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor told Sports Headliners the club almost changed its roster.

“I can say that they (the front office) were close to making a trade,” Taylor said Monday. “I don’t want to talk about the players (involved) because I just think that would be kind of a negative. But they had a couple of deals (involving)…a third team and at the last minute the other team backed out in a couple of cases.”

Minnesota media and fans had been infatuated for months about the Wolves possibly acquiring Ben Simmons. At 6-11 he is among the elite point guards in the NBA. The disgruntled Simmons refused to play this season with the 76ers and was finally traded last week to the Nets.

Near the trade deadline the Wolves weren’t close to swinging a deal for Simmons whose reasons for wanting out of Philadelphia remain murky. Taylor said the Wolves were in pursuit of players who could come off the bench to help their run toward the playoffs, and were not negotiating a blockbuster deal.

The Wolves last made the playoffs in 2018. Before then the franchise hadn’t earned its way into the postseason since 2004. With a 31-27 record and 24 regular season games remaining, there is an expectation about a playoff return. Not only is the record over .500 but the Wolves are 15-7 since January 3.

Taylor likes his team and he should. There is a roster of players (including a talented big three of Anthony Edwards, Karl-Anthony Towns and D’Angelo Russell) with their best years ahead of them.

The owner believes the potential is there for a “great future” and he wants to see the club make a statement by entering the playoffs in the spring. “If we can get going this year, there’s no reason we can’t build upon it,” he said.

Taylor praised efforts by interim Wolves front office leader Sachin Gupta and his staff involving possible trades. Taylor, though, didn’t offer specifics on who will lead the basketball operations decisions after this season. “We’ll wait and see how this year goes. Again (like coach Chris Finch), he’s done a good job of communication of what’s going on.”

Gupta still holds the same title, executive VP of basketball operations, he had under Gersson Rosas who was dismissed as president in September. It was Rosas who led the construction of the present roster and hired Finch.

Gupta displayed patience in not executing a trade, resisting a change of the roster just to prove he could make a deal. Taylor also sees patience in Finch who has been the head coach for about a year. “He doesn’t get excited. He doesn’t get too worried. He’s just kind of a consistent type of a person.”

By the end of 2023 Taylor expects new owners Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez to have the majority financial interest in the franchise. The three men set up a process last year that targets a gradual change in ownership. Taylor said Lore and Rodriguez have been attending games, meeting with staff and been supportive. “I am really happy with it (the process),” Taylor said.

Taylor will eventually own a minority share of the franchise. Speculation is 20 percent. “Something like that,” he said.

Worth Noting

Lore and Rodriguez saw the Wolves win their seventh consecutive game at Target Center last evening. Post game A-Rod tweeted about the “GREAT” win and energy in the building.

The Wolves, who defeated the Hornets 126-120, had 39 points from Towns, including 19 in the fourth quarter and overtime. Minnesota trailed by 13 points with 9:55 remaining in the fourth quarter.

The Golden Gophers men’s basketball team is 12-11 overall and 3-11 in Big Ten games after last night’s 70-45 loss in Columbus. Minnesota will probably need at least three more wins to prompt interest from the National Invitational Tournament.

The Gophers have quality wins including over Michigan, Mississippi State and Rutgers.

Olympic gold medal winner Gable Steveson, the University of Minnesota heavyweight wrestling icon from Apple Valley, had his final career match on campus last Friday night. It was a storybook finish. After defeating his Ohio State opponent he took a bow and did one last signature back flip in front of fans at Maturi Pavilion.

Steveson will chase another Big Ten title in Lincoln March 4-5 but his legacy as one of the Gophers’ all-time great athletes is secure. His All-American record includes a collegiate 48-0 dual record, 20-0 at the Pav. He came to Minnesota as a four-time state champion.

Former Albert Lea state championship wrestling coach Paul Ehrhard, who also was a college wrestling official, raved about the 285-pound Steveson in an email to Sports Headliners. “Most of the other top heavyweights were not nearly the technicians that Gable is. His ability from all positions is good but he excels on his feet. He has the uncanny ability to set up his opponent so he can use his quickness and great body carriage to take down opponents time after time.”

Ehrhard, a regular at Gopher wrestling meets, remembers the compliment Iowa fans paid Steveson after he defeated his Hawkeye opponent. “When you beat the Iowa heavyweight and the Iowa crowd gives you a standing ovation, you know you are special. I have observed him signing autographs and taking pictures with fans young and old for a half hour before meets. He is not only the best wrestler of his class, but a great ambassador for amateur wrestling.”

Wild coach Dean Evason has a tattoo with these words: “One day at a time.”

The Wild play at the Jets tonight, with Evason returning to his native Manitoba.

The Wild could make a deep playoff run and early games at Xcel Energy Center will gross about $1.75 million in ticket sales, per an NHL source.

Coach John Anderson and his Gopher baseball team begin their 2022 season Friday at Florida Atlantic. This will be Anderson’s 41st season leading the legacy program.

Condolences to family and friends of Tim Moreland, the former broadcaster of Vikings and Twins games in the early 1980s, who passed away last month at age 75 in North Carolina.

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Rams’ Way a Potential Path for Vikings

Posted on February 8, 2022 by David Shama

The Rams play in the Super Bowl Sunday and are 55-26 during the last five seasons. Their front office uses an approach that could help the Vikings build their roster and elevate out of the mediocrity of recent seasons.

The Rams haven’t drafted in the first round since 2016. Their next first rounder, as of now, is scheduled for 2024. Put the word scheduled in bold face if you like because with the Rams things happen with personnel acquisition—before the season, during training camp and even close to Super Bowl time.

This is an aggressive front office with a philosophy that believes it’s better to acquire proven impact players (like quarterback Matthew Stafford, wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. and linebacker Von Miller) than gamble on first round prospects. The roster has been constructed with key personnel who came via trades, free agency and draft picks beyond round one.

By not drafting in the first round, the Rams avoid the big salaries such players command. The savings is used to pay a bevy of stars on the roster that includes those mentioned above and others like defensive tackle Aaron Donald, cornerback Jalen Ramsey and offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth.

Superior scouting can pay off big with draft choices beyond the first and second rounds. The Rams’ poster boy for that is wide receiver Cooper Kupp, an NFL MVP candidate selected on the third round out of Eastern Washington.

Don’t get the idea the Rams trade away most of their draft choices in their wheeling and dealing. They often receive draft picks in return, and they also are awarded compensatory picks from the NFL for letting their free agents walk away. Part of the Rams’ successful roster construction approach is stockpiling draft choices.

Rams GM Les Snead isn’t afraid to make mistakes in the draft, or with free agents or via trades. Sometimes he and his front office colleagues are working on deadlines in crisis situations—drawing some similarity to the pressures of Wall Street where new Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah worked before building a career in the NFL.

It will be interesting to see if he uses a versatile and comprehensive approach like the Rams in the days ahead. Rick Spielman, his predecessor, was aggressive in stockpiling draft choices, too. He was spot on with some draft selections after the first round, taking Dalvin Cook and Brain O’Neill in the second round, Danielle Hunter in the third and Stefon Diggs and Ezra Cleveland in the fifth. But the Vikings haven’t done much over the years with mega free agent signings or trades. It’s been a long time since a Brett Favre or Jared Allen walked through the front door of the practice facility.

Worth Noting

Coach Jim Dutcher expects most of his players from the 1982 Golden Gophers’ Big Ten title team to participate in their 40-year celebration February 22, 23 and 24. It looks like 10 of the 12 will get together, including all the starters except for guard Tommy Davis who likely will be in France.

That starting group had just one native Minnesotan, center Randy Breuer. When Dutcher coached in the 1970s and 1980s at Minnesota, there were years when the state high school programs didn’t have a single Division I prospect. That’s in sharp contrast to the new millennium with the state now having a national reputation for producing quality D-I talent—sometimes the best in the country in Chet Holmgren, Jalen Suggs and Tyus Jones. “It’s worlds different,” Dutcher told Sports Headliners.

The 1982 group has been invited by Gopher head coach Ben Johnson to watch practice February 22 and then have dinner with the team. At halftime of the February 23 game against Wisconsin, Dutcher and his players will be honored. The next day the coach will host brunch at an Edina restaurant.

Johnson has faced the most difficult rebuild in memory at Minnesota. The first-year coach started the schedule with one returning player from last season and a roster of newcomers put together in hurry up fashion last spring. The Gophers, 11-9 overall and 2-9 in the Big Ten, have impressed with their competitiveness after going into the fall with the lowest of media and fan expectations. “He’s done an amazingly good job for his first year,” said Dutcher whose 1982 team was the last at Minnesota to win the league title.

Dutcher, 88, will attend granddaughter Liza’s wedding in San Diego next October. Father Brian Dutcher is head men’s basketball coach at San Diego State where assistant coach Mark Fisher coaches from a wheel chair after being diagnosed with ALS in 2013.

Bill Fitch only coached two seasons at the University of Minnesota, 1968-69 and 1969-70. He bolted for an NBA career that began with the expansion Cavaliers. If he had remained at Minnesota, he could have made the Golden Gophers Big Ten champs and a force on the national scene.

The Hall of Fame coach died earlier this month and I mourn his loss. I covered him during his Gophers days and we talked a few times by phone in recent years. Bill had a sharp tongue for his players and a quick wit for the media.

The Gophers had a shoot-first guard named Ollie Shannon who Fitch inherited after taking over the program. Ollie thought his shooting range was pretty much anywhere on the court. After a game in which Shannon almost cast a shot from mid-court the sarcastic coach told the media, “There goes Ollie running one of our options (from the playbook).”

Lou Nanne will provide TV analysis for the 58th year at the state hockey tournament next month. He is also doing four TV games this season for the Wild.

Nanne was captain of the 1968 US Olympic hockey team. Do the Americans have a chance of winning a medal this winter? “I definitely think they have,” he said.

Gopher athletic director Mark Coyle’s expected contract extension through 2028 is welcome news for fans “rowing the boat” because it helps assure a tight relationship with head football coach P.J. Fleck.

Surging Tom Hoge from Fargo, who finished second last month at the American Express in La Quinta and won Sunday’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, will be a headliner at this summer’s 3M Open in Blaine. “We fully expect him to play the 3M,” said Hollis Cavner who runs the Minnesota PGA Tour event.

Celebrity players at the AT&T included Bill Murray, the comedian, star of Caddyshack and St. Paul Saints investor. The showman wowed the crowd with a no-look putt.

Senior PGA rules official Mark Dusbabek, the former Gopher football player from Faribault, worked the tournament.

The Tapemark Minnesota PGA Pro-Am is set for June 10-12 at Southview Country Club. The event was successfully run for decades by the Klas family and this year will be the 51st annual.

With the ongoing pandemic, CORES program organizers are uncertain about a March gathering in Bloomington. CORES is an acronym for coaches, officials, reporters, educators and sports fans.

The dual meet between top-ranked Penn State and No. 2 Iowa last month averaged 363,000 viewers, making it the most-watched wrestling broadcast in Big Ten Network history. The previous record was 343,000 viewers, also set by the two wrestling powerhouses in January of 2020.

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Trade Kirk Cousins, Draft Matt Corral

Posted on February 6, 2022February 6, 2022 by David Shama

Daniel House started a blog several years ago devoted to Vikings coverage and since then he has drawn a large following for his new age insights about Minnesota’s NFL team and also the Golden Gophers. House is a workhorse in gathering and interpreting comprehensive information—including analytics—about those two teams. He also has a “library” on other pro and college football teams and players across the nation.

House told Sports Headliners he believes the Vikings, if they have the opportunity, should grab Ole Miss quarterback Matt Corral in the upcoming NFL Draft. “That’s the guy I would be going after 100 percent…a quarterback that has the highest upside that could change your franchise if everything clicks and the system fits him well.”

Corral hasn’t been as valued in 2022 mock drafts as a couple of other college quarterbacks. House is puzzled about that but it doesn’t deter him from raving about Corral who played for head coach Lane Kiffin, the quarterback whisperer who attended Bloomington Jefferson High School.

House looks at Corral and sees an athlete with arm strength and pocket presence who played in a quick tempo offense at Mississippi. He praises Corral’s competitive attitude and how teammates rally around him. Invaluable, too, is Corral’s ability to run and make gains out of potential lost yardage situations, while fitting the mobility mold of most successful NFL quarterbacks in today’s game. “That play extension trait is the most important thing, and Corral definitely has that,” House said.

House acknowledges Corral has mechanical things “he can clean up” and that the California native needs to keep improving his accuracy. But House could see the Vikings writing a long-term success story with a franchise rebuild plan that trades away 33-year-old QB Kirk Cousins, replaces him with a “bridge quarterback” for a couple of seasons and develops Corral to take over the position.

NFL trades are allowed starting next month and the Vikings are likely interested in moving on from Cousins. His $45 million salary cap hit is a roadblock to signing other players. Considered a top 12 to 15 NFL quarterback, Cousins has experienced mixed success with the Vikings but might be seen as someone helping another team improve. The Vikings could sweeten a trade deal by paying part of Cousins’ 2022 guaranteed salary.

Several landing spots might be in play including the Browns and Broncos. There are Vikings ties in both places. Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski was Kirk’s offensive coordinator in 2018 and 2019. New Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah came from the Cleveland front office. Klint Kubiak, Minnesota’s offensive coordinator last season, is now the quarterbacks coach with the Broncos. Former Vikings assistant general manager George Paton is the Denver GM.

A “bridge quarterback” candidate pool could include Baker Mayfield of the Browns. Former Vikings QB Teddy Bridgewater, popular with teammates and fans while in Minnesota, is with the Broncos. There are other possibilities with other teams.

When Cousins played for Washington his quarterbacks coach for one season was Kevin O’Connell, now the new Vikings head coach. He worked with Cousins to improve his quarterback’s skills in improvising and mobility. It’s evident, though, that Cousins doesn’t have a high ceiling for extending plays. “He is not that guy…that can go off script,” House said.

More recently as offensive coordinator of the Rams, O’Connell helped develop and direct one of the NFL’s most imaginative offenses, built on attacking the defense all over the field. Having a quarterback who can extend plays is most certainly something O’Connell wants in his Viking quarterbacks.

O’Connell is known for his teaching skills and could welcome a talent like Corral. He also has a young, athletic quarterback on the roster in Kellen Mond who the Vikings selected in the third round of the 2021 NFL Draft.

In next Sunday’s Super Bowl the Rams play the Bengals, a team that was among the bottom feeders of the NFL for years. But with second year QB whiz Joe Burrow the Bengals have surprisingly earned their way into the big game. The Vikings haven’t been to the Super Bowl since 1977 and to earn their way back will need exceptional quarterback play.

House suggests Adofo-Mensah and O’Connell may well have to take multiple shots at finding their savior. “I think that’s the important thing is trying to throw darts until you hit on a quarterback because if you hit on the right one, you saw what can happen,” House said referring to the success of quarterbacks like Burrow and Patrick Mahomes of the Chiefs.

Nanne: Kaprizov Most Exciting Wild Player Ever

Lou Nanne, 80, is the godfather of Minnesota hockey. He was an All-American defenseman for the Golden Gophers, and for the NHL North Stars he was a player, coach, GM and president. At state tournament time he has been the authoritative voice of Minnesota prep hockey for nearly six decades.

When Nanne talks hockey, listen. And the other day he was raving about the Wild’s electric second-season forward Kirill Kaprizov.

“He’s the most exciting player the Wild has ever had to watch,” Nanne told Sports Headliners. “He’s so much fun and he’s got so many different skills. It’s really good that the Wild fans have the opportunity to see him play like this. That’s why you buy tickets is to be entertained and he entertains you.”

Nanne counts the 24-year-old Russian forward among a handful of NHL players who routinely bring fans out of their seats. He joins the appreciative crowds (whether at home or at Xcel Energy Center) in anticipating Kaprizov’s next shift on the ice and what he might do.

On track to becoming a super star, Kaprizov creates magic on the ice with his goal scoring and playmaking. “The fact that he can create stuff out of nothing,” Nanne said. “His speed, his hands, his shot, his head. It just energizes you. …He’s got five years on the contract and it should be a delightful five years watching this guy.”

Starting with Kaprizov’s rookie debut more than a year ago, opponents have tried to double-team and intimidate him. “That doesn’t affect him at all,” Nanne said. “He’s got a low base and center of gravity. He’s got huge thighs and he’s very, very strong on his skates. …He’s like a little truck out there. He’s taken some heavy hits.”

Nanne sees improvement from last season, particularly defensively, by the 5-10, 200-pound Kaprizov who is being showcased at the NHL All-Star Weekend in Las Vegas. “Kirill the Thrill” is joined in Vegas this weekend by teammate Cam Talbot who Nanne ranks a top 10 NHL goalie.

“He is a smart goaltender,” Nanne said. “He knows how to play. The way he cuts his angles, the way he controls rebounds. The way he sets pucks up; when to free the puck. …”

The Wild has a 28-10-3 record. It’s the first time in franchise history to earn 28 wins in the first 41 games. Minnesota’s first season was 2000-2001.

At the halfway mark of the season, Nanne includes the Wild among teams he believes are most likely to earn their way into the Stanley Cup Finals. Others are the Panthers, Avalanche, Golden Knights, Capitals and Lightning.

“Oh, I am really excited about them,” Nanne said about the Wild. “They’re playing so well.”

Minnesota has won six consecutive games but the second half of the schedule will continue to test the team’s abilities, resolve and depth. The Wild must play 40 games in 77 days.

The NHL trade deadline is March 21. The Wild, led by GM Bill Guerin, will apparently be cautious in making a move that could upset the locker room. “This team is a very close team,” Nanne said. “They care about one another and they play for one another. I know that Bill is very concerned about that (team chemistry). What he is going to do is…be extremely calculated—if he does anything—because he likes what he has.”

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