short takes
New perspective
One change the league also hopes to make before the playoffs is to move its two cameras inside each post to inside the crossbar.
"We think it'll give us a truer picture and a real look straight down from 4 feet away rather than the overhead on the rafters that can sometimes be distorted," Senior vice president of hockey operations Kris King said. "Oftentimes there's traffic or goalie gear locking out [the post] cameras, and what we saw at the All-Star Game looked fantastic."
Incidentally, staffers at the NHL situation room all said the cameras they're able to manipulate all showed that Charlie Coyle did not score in the final seconds of a recent game in Philadelphia. Many Wild fans believe Michal Neuvirth stopped Coyle's shot with his stick over the goal line.
Fletcher's invited
Wild GM Chuck Fletcher will be part of a 20-year reunion of the 1996 Florida Panthers team that went to the Stanley Cup Final when the Panthers host the Flyers on March 12. It worked out perfectly for Fletcher, Bryan Murray's assistant that year, because he has to be in South Florida the same time for the GM meetings.
Wanted: U.S. captain
Dean Lombardi, the United States' World Cup GM, indicated Wednesday there would be a changing of the leadership guard for the Americans this September. That would indicate that the Wild's Zach Parise won't captain the Americans the way he did during the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014.
