Phase two has officially begun for the Minnesota Wild.
Since joining the league as an expansion team for 2000 season, Minnesota has been run by one general manager, one coach and it has been built around the same superstar. None of them will be back for the coming season though, and for an organization that has always done things with caution leading the way, that qualifies as a radical makeover.
Some of it might even be visible on the ice. The Wild signed free-agent Martin Havlat to fill the void franchise player Marian Gaborik left when he signed with the Rangers, but the rest of the roster is nearly identical to the one that missed the playoffs last spring, the fifth time that’s happened in nine seasons of play for Minnesota. Which means the real changes are with the suits, with Doug Risebrough being canned as GM a few days after Jacques Lemaire resigned as coach.
Former teammates on four Montreal Canadiens Stanley Cup winners in the 1970s, Risebrough and Lemaire defined the first era of the Wild with a team that made the most of modest talent by playing tight, defense-oriented hockey. While it was often boring, it kept the team competitive, if only on a peripheral level.
But times have changed in the Western Conference and Minnesota needs to adapt, so enter new GM Chuck Fletcher and rookie coach Todd Richards. Both come from the Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins organization and are expected to create a more aggressive, offensive-focused style for the team, something that won’t necessarily happen overnight even with Havlat joining forwards like Mikko Koivu and Andrew Brunette up front.
The strength of this team is still its defense and Vezina candidate Niklas Backstrom in goal, so even if Minnesota wants to be more about offense this season, it doesn’t seem to have the right horses to do it.
Five things to know about the Wild.
1. When Richards was hired, he talked specifically about allowing his defensemen to get more involved in the offense. Maybe that will help Kim Johnsson, the team’s No. 1 D-man who managed just 24 points last season despite getting nearly 25 minutes of ice time per game. But it definitely will benefit Brent Burns, particularly if he gets to spend the entire season on the blue line instead of taking turns up front as Lemaire required him to do last season. Burns is an offensive talent -- he has scored 23 goals in the last two seasons -- and there are many NHL types who believe he can rival the production of Washington's Mike Green in the right system.
2. No one will argue that a new philosophical approach is needed in Minnesota, but Richards will find implementing it a challenge because the Wild really aren’t very deep up front. Havlat, if he’s healthy, can be a point per game producer and captain Koivu should put up nearly that much, but Minnesota has to be concerned about the fact that a 37-year-old (Owen Nolan) and a 35-year-old (Brunette) claimed the top two spots on its goal scoring chart. James Sheppard and Pierre-Marc Bouchard have some offensive ability, but the reality is that Richards will probably find it easier to put together a couple of checking lines than scoring lines.
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CBSSports.com's Wes Goldstein, Greg Cimilluca and Erin Brown preview the Northwest Division. 3. At least Richards will be able to count on a strong defense in front of Backstrom. Johnsson, Burns, power play quarterback Marek Zidlicky and stay at home type Nick Schultz make for a solid top two units, and Minnesota added some veteran depth with Greg Zanon, who blocked 237 shots last season, and Shane Hnidy, a low risk guy who can give you a dozen good minutes a game
4. For a team that doesn’t score much, the Wild was pretty good on the power play last season, connecting 20.1 percent of the time, the ninth best rate in the league. Minnesota was even better on its other special team, finishing second overall with a 87.6 percent success rate. Of course the Wild helped themselves by taking less than 11 penalty minutes per game, the third best total in the league.
5. One reason the Wild failed to make any significant progress on the ice during Risebrough’s reign was the former GM’s lack of recent success at the drafting table. Risebrough hit it big in his first few drafts with players like Gaborik, Nick Schultz, Koivu, Burns and Josh Harding, but since 2004 only four draftees have seen time in a Wild uniform. Of those, only Cal Cutterback has proven to be NHL worthy. Cutterback led the NHL with 356 hits as a rookie last season and was only the fourth Wild freshman to score at least 10 goals is his debut season. Minnesota still has high hopes for James Sheppard, Benoit Pouliot and Colton Gillies, but the Wild is running out of patience.
