Jim Souhan: New GM Fletcher knew what he was getting himself into

Here in the State of Hokey, the Wild will invite just about anyone to yell, "Let's Play Hockey."

If they need help finding "celebrities" to fire up the "Team of 18,000," I am here to help.

Next game, they should bring back Doug Risebrough. That way Risebrough could get the fans riled, and then the Wild would get to fire him all over again.

Thursday night at the X, it was hard to tell if there were more empty seats or empty Wild jerseys, as the Fighting Christmas Trees played pathetically while losing 5-2 to the beat-up Canucks.

There are four prime figures you could blame for the Wild's lousy play so far: Risebrough, new GM Chuck Fletcher, old coach Jacques Lemaire or new coach Todd Richards.

Richards is the easiest to pick on because his players have looked so confused and tentative, but every rookie coach should get a little time to learn on the job.

Fletcher strikes me as a sharp operator, and he inherited a difficult assignment: rebuilding a franchise with a dearth of young talent while trying to retain sellout (or alleged sellout) crowds.

So, as I did last year, I'm prepared to cast most of the blame for the Wild's mediocre 2008-09 season and lethargic start in 2009-10 on The Riser, who made the classic sports-management mistake of overrating the young talent in his organization, and talking about building for the future when he should have been pushing to win.

He kept selling James Sheppard as the future. Sheppard has zero points this season. As many as me. Sheppard should be benched after the way he played Thursday, but so should another half-dozen Wild players.

Here's where Fletcher is culpable: His big acquisition was Martin Havlat, who hasn't been much better than Sheppard. Havlat is a pass-first player on a team with no outstanding shooters.

Thursday morning, I spoke with Fletcher. He admitted to being disappointed by his team's first 14 games, but praised Richards' ability to rethink his approach after the Wild's 4-3 loss to Nashville on Oct. 28.

"That game seemed to be a really disappointing game," Fletcher said. "We didn't speak a lot that night, but the next day we got together and I really appreciated his mind-set, which was, 'OK, it was incredibly disappointing, but what can we do? What, realistically, do we need to do to get better?'

"We were getting into a vicious circle, where the more we lost, the harder it was to see straight. I thought Todd and his staff made some great decisions that day."

The Wild won two in a row after that. Then came Thursday, and a well-rested, supposedly chipper Wild team looked lost and uninterested.

Fletcher knows he needs to restock the Wild's talent pool. Richards knows he needs to find a way into his players' heads.

In the wake of Risebrough ruining the franchise's relationship with the best player in Wild history, Marian Gaborik, this team needs, simply, more scorers. It also needs to show a little gumption in the wake of an unsightly home loss that included three first-period shots and left the Wild with just 10 points and buried in its division.

"I felt I had studied the team and had asked a lot of questions, and I think I took the job with my eyes wide open," Fletcher said. "Certainly, there's a core of really good hockey players here, and we feel we can be competitive this year and next year and for the foreseeable future. But there's no question in my mind that going forward we have to continue to find more young assets and find some more talented players through the draft, and continue to build the foundation of this team to be successful long-term."

"I really believe we're going in the right direction," he said. "I believe in what we're doing, and I believe we'll get there, because we will stay true to what we believe in, and it will work out."

Of course, Fletcher said that Thursday morning, before Havlat & The Have-Nots meandered through another ugly loss.