MVN - Most Valuable Network

Wild put Stephane Veilleux on waivers, a wake up call for him and the State of Hockey

In an earlier article I quoted the famous phrase from the Six Million Dollar Man, “We can rebuild him, we have the technology” and while any sports fans quivers at the sound of hearing their favorite team and ‘rebuild’ in the same sentence perhaps I can bring some relief in that regard. Perhaps ‘rebuild’ is not the most accurate term; maybe ‘reconstruction’ will be easier to cope with as well as describe what is taking place. The team has already seen 7 players that ended last season on the team leave the organization to play in other leagues or other NHL teams. A microcosm of this ‘reconstruction’ was the contract negotiation between the Wild and Stephane Veilleux.

Veilleux, the hard charging left winger from Beauceville, Quebec has been one of the team’s most effective checkers the last few seasons. Yet tension between the team, Veilleux and his agent would get rather ugly. So much so that the firery haired left winger dumped his agent and the Wild placed Veilleux on waivers over a dispute somewhere in the realm of just $50,000. Many of us would love to have $50,000 but in professional contract terms its small potatoes. News of the team putting Veilleux on waivers stirred up some negative outcries from fans on the team’s website. The Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Michael Russo felt the Wild were rather bold in trying to send a message to Veilleux that he may not be ‘worth’ as much as he thinks by placing him on waivers as he could potentially be picked up by any other team. “Stupid” and “Bad move” summarized a fair portion of the responses, but Veilleux’s game is not overly unique. The league has lots of fairly fast crashing wingers and Veilleux did not possess skill that is not difficult to find. Veilleux at times would stand up for teammates but he was not that effective as a fighter and routinely would get dominated once the gloves came off. Much to some fans’ surprise Veilleux passed through waivers unclaimed. Talk about a shot to the ego, eh Stephane?

Veilleux clearly had his best season for the Wild last season collecting a career-high 11 goals and 18 points along with 61 penalty minutes. Yet being worthy of a hefty raise? Not quite unless he finds more ways to deliver offense or better toughness than he has the last few seasons. The waiving of Stephane Veilleux does perhaps address a feeling of complacency among the team’s remaining vets. If Veilleux is truly out of the Wild’s roster plans then that opens up another spot for a youngster to fill in. Cal Clutterbuck seems like the logical choice; the hard charging fearless winger never ever takes a shift off and likes to agitate something Veilleux never really did. Clutterbuck impressed in his short stint last season and really won over the Wild and Aeros’ coaching staff with his energy and professionalism. If Clutterbuck’s leadership and energy at the prospect camp helped prompt the team to think it could put Veilleux on waivers then more power to him. However, Veilleux’s departure would be the 8th player cast off since the end of this last season and it begs some rather profound questions, two really stick out in my mind.

1. What does this mean for team chemistry? The tremendous amount of moves will no doubt have a considerable effect on chemistry between players. While Wild Head Coach Jacques Lemaire is known for juggling lines constantly we still had a few ideas of what pairings would likely be used. This year most of those pairings have been altered or left the team altogether. There are lots of players one can list that might get time on the top 2 lines; Owen Nolan, Mark Parrish, Antti Miettinen, Benoit Pouliot just to name a few.

2. Will the Wild suffer by having so many players with little or no NHL experience? Without question the team will have to persevere through some growing pains as the youngsters learn the subtleties of the game at the NHL level. What will be very intriguing will be how much patience Jacques Lemaire demonstrates with these young players when they do (and they will) make costly errors. Lemaire has always been known to be a great teacher of the game, but does he really want a challenge like this at this point in his career? The two-time Jack Adams Award winner seriously contemplated retirement after this last season, how much more may he re-think that if the team takes a step backwards?

It will be a very interesting season and as the team heads towards arbitration with Pierre-Marc Bouchard we could still see more changes in the roster. This offseason of reconstruction has Wild fans feeling anxious and that anxiety will likely stay until the team drops the puck in October. It has been a crazy ride so far, and we will find out in the next few months whether change is a good thing for this organization.

Update: Stephane Veilleux just signed a 1-year deal worth $737,500 with the Minnesota Wild so it appears he will be back next season; but that still does not mean Cal Clutterbuck will not get a shot.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 19th, 2008 at 7:17 pm and is filed under Wild Editorials, Wild News & Notes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.