wild/nhl

what happened to Latendresse? Ruff is "barking at your heels" Yeo....look over your shoulder for the rest of the year...loved to have him in Minnesota...

Take Ruff as soon as you can get him!!!

Our New coach next season!

Lindy, I can't say for sure so this is my gut feeling, Leo and Fletch have both had shots at veteran coaches and they have looked away OR the veteran coach gets scared off from the two of them. I think this is a little bit of both, I would think Lindy Ruff would be nervous of Uncle Leo/fletch...... How can you not like Lindy Ruff, Lindy ? I would be excited that is for sure, this would a shift of thinking for the Wild brass and maybe a raising of the flag as enough is enough playing in the romper room.... hehehehehe

Actually, it's the perfect situation for Ruff. He only has to coach a handful of games, then hopefully the playoffs, THEN he can entertain all the offers he wants. This type of season is perfect for him to replace Yeo.

Fletcher's next hire for a coach will probably be straight out of high school. Ruff has no chance....he has way too much experience.

Fletchers next pick could be right out of high school.... Stillwater highschool. Coach Phil Housley. He coached the USA to the Gold at World Juniors. Phil is an NHL Hall of Famer, and a great coach.. If you're going to have a young coach, why not one who had over 1200 NHL points! He knows more about the game than Yeo will ever know..

I'm not so sure Lindy Ruff would be a good fit for Minnesota. As mentioned by other commenters, it would appear Craig Leipold and/or Chuck Fletcher seem to shy away from, or scare off, veteran coaches. Both times so far, when they've had the chance to try and get a coach with plenty of experience, they went with an unproven rookie; talking about their upside, how it was only a matter of time before someone made them a head coach, they were going to instill a new system that was more up-tempo and offensive-oriented, blah, blah, blah, yaddah, yaddah, yaddah. So I'm not convinced they would want an actual proven head coach if given the chance. Also, during this season, plenty of Buffalo Sabres fans were complaining about a lot of the same things the Wild fans are. They weren't convinced the "system" worked; they were convinced the players were no longer responding to the coach, they thought the players really weren't playing motivated hockey; - debating whether that was the coaches fault, or the players' fault. How much of that is real, and how much of that is just perception is hard to say without being in the Sabres locker room; but it seems Lindy Ruff would be just going from one bad situation to another.

Also, the dismissal of Lindy Ruff definitely seems warranted. When a team has one of the current top goal/points-scorers (Thomas Vanek); along with other very good players like Jason Pominville and Drew Stafford; and good D-men like Jordan Leopold and Christian Ehrhoff; along with a former Vezina Trophy winner in goal (Ryan Miller) and the team only has 6 wins and is tied for the second-least points in the NHL standings, you know something is not right with the team.

Ruff, Hitchcock, Trotz, Quinville,Sutter, are all experienced, quality coaches who would be great candidates next time the Wild switch. I really don't understand why Fletch keeps bringing in rookie coaches from the Pittsburgh system. Maybe it is because he is a rookie GM.