IOWA'S TOUGH PATH SHOWS LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL
Jan 28, 2016By Tom Witosky | Follow @toskyAHLWild
Minnesota Wild General Manager Chuck Fletcher and American Hockey League Commissioner Dave Andrews came to the same conclusion on a recent visit to Des Moines on the same weekend: The Iowa Wild’s future here as a top competitive AHL club looks solid.
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“As a team, we are a lot better mostly because we are a lot healthier,” Fletcher said as he watched the Wild pull a come-from-behind overtime win over San Jose. “The collective confidence of the group is growing.”
The next day, Andrews visited Des Moines to chat with club officials and fans about the Wild franchise and its progress. Iowa lost to Stockton that afternoon, but didn’t that alter Andrews’ view of the Wild’s progress over the past 2 ½ seasons.
“The commitment and connection between the Wild and the community is very impressive,” Andrews said. “I am not surprised given the kind of leadership and commitment the Wild has and the strength of the community’s response. It is going to continue to grow.”
Both Fletcher’s and Andrews’ conclusions come at the halfway point of the 2015-16 season that has been a disappointment in terms of competition. But those problems haven’t had much impact on Iowa’s fans attending games. Going into this weekend, the Wild ranks in the top half of the 30 AHL clubs.
Major injuries to centers Zac Dalpe and Tyler Graovac, who began the season with Minnesota, took away any real scoring threats for most of the first 38 games. While Dalpe is still recovering, Graovac has returned to the ice to find a number of Wild rookies beginning to find their AHL legs, particularly center Grayson Downing, forward Christoph Bertschy, as well as defensemen Mike Reilly and Gustav Olofsson, who will play in the AHL All-Star game this weekend
“We are generating a lot of chances and even on those nights when we have trouble scoring, the team is performing better.” Fletcher said. “Earlier in the year, we weren’t getting those kinds of chances. Most games now, we are getting a lot of shots on goal, generating chances and giving ourselves a chance to be in the game.”
The team’s improvement is reflected in its above .500 record since late-December.
Fletcher said one of the biggest surprises has been Downing, who missed 17 games at the beginning of the season, but leads the team in scoring at a rate close to one point a game.
“He seems to have been able to get up to speed at this level quicker than what we had expected,” Fletcher said. “He has become a very good offensive player right away.”
And, there likely is more talent on the way. Four Wild draftees - Joel Ericksson-Ek, Louis Belpedio, Kirill Kaprisov and Kaapo Kahkonen – were members of teams in the final four of the under-20 International Ice Hockey Federation’s World Championships. Plus several college players including Alex Tuch, Mario Luccia and Jordan Greenway are impressing club officials.
“You can see there are a lot of talented kids who are progressing and hopefully will be turning pro here in a few years,” Fletcher said. “We have a lot more talent coming in. It is going to be a strong future here.”
Fletcher said that the arrival of new talent plus the young talent already in Iowa should help the club to turn the corner on the ice.
“We have had a few years where we didn’t have a lot of draft picks so we really didn’t have a lot of talent coming in,” he said. “The key to winning the American league is that you need your best players to be the second and third-year players. Next year we should be able to see that take place.”
Andrews, the AHL commissioner, agreed that any AHL team’s fortune can turn quickly.
“It has been challenging because the team hasn’t been as competitive as fans might like over the last two seasons,” Andrews said. “But the fact is that it is a cyclical league and depends on how well your draft choices come through. The Wild up in Minnesota knows what they are doing so that makes me very sure the club is going to grow better at this level.”
Off the ice, Andrews gave high marks to the club’s strategy to embed itself in the community.
“They do everything right from investing in the club and the community. People appreciate it,” he said. “They appreciate that this is professionally run and a strong commitment.”
As for the future, Andrews said that he’s seen good franchises and bad ones.
“When you have been in this as long as I have, you can feel the places where you are going to have challenge,” he said. “When we came here two years ago, I had a good feeling about it and still do.”