Massive Day One Wild blog on first impressions and, of course, goaltending

Advance warning: Day One of Wild training camp is in the books, and this blog is going to be jam-packed (and long) with info and will continue to be throughout training camp and the season.

It's good to be back. This is my 10^th season covering the Wild and, believe it or not, 20^th year around the NHL. Time certainly flies when you're having fun and have a cool job.

OK, where to start?

First of all, to give you an indication of where coach Mike Yeo's very, very early thinking is, here were today's initial lines and defense pairs (frankly, it's exactly what my summer-long depth chart has been):

Zach Parise-Mikael Granlund-Jason Pominville

Thomas Vanek-Mikko Koivu-Charlie Coyle

Matt Cooke-Erik Haula-Nino Niederreiter

Ryan Suter-Jonas Brodin (reunited from earlier last season)

Marco Scandella-Jared Spurgeon (reunited from earlier last season)

Keith Ballard-Christian Folin

So again, this is the way Yeo is thinking in Day One, but it gives us a good indication that others will have to play themselves onto the team (or vice versa and some will have to play themselves off). Rosters are 23 men, so if one assumes two goalies make it (incredible assumption) and those two are Niklas Backstrom and Darcy Kuemper, that tells us three other skaters have the ability to make the team.

Up front, the guys contending include Cody Almond, Stephane Veilleux, Jordan Schroeder, Michael Keranen, Brett Sutter, Kurtis Gabriel, Tyler Graovac and Brett Bulmer. Others may emerge, who knows.

Couple early impressions from me in no order: Haula and Granlund look awesome, and in fact, that Cooke-Haula-Niederreiter line looked really; Dumba stood out; Graovac just looks like a player. So much upside; Dumba stood out (Oh, I said that). So did Spurgeon; I'd say Schroeder's ankle issues of last year with Vancouver are behind him. He is fast and skilled; Invitee Ryan Walters, the UNO graduate and Rosemount native on a tryout, continues to look good. He was one of the top scorers in the nation two years ago but had a bit of an off year last year. Smart and gets points, and after his Traverse City tournament and today's scrimmage, if he keeps it up he may put himself in a position to earn an NHL two-way or purely an AHL deal with Iowa; Mikko Koivu, and I think I mentioned this a few weeks ago, says his ankle is 100 percent; Charlie Coyle said he was very happy to get contact today because he was curious to see how his shoulders (remember he played with TWO separated shoulders late in the Colorado series and all of Chicago) would hold up; Guillaume Gelinas, the smallish but prolific offensive defenseman signed out of the Q this past offseason, didn't participate today because he's hurt. But he is in camp.

Where to continue?

Oh!!! It wouldn't be a Wild blog without talking goaltending (which Rachel Blount so graciously volunteered to write about for Saturday's paper so I could write the Suter story; I'm sort of goaltendered out).

Kuemper and Bryzgalov both arrived today. Kuemper looks the same. Josh Harding is still suspended. And Bryzgalov, well, is the same.

Quirky. Funny. And honest.

"You know, it was first time on ice in four months. A little bit tough," Bryzgalov said.

Said Yeo: "Well, I think he's tired right now, I'll say that. Yeah, he's honest and I don't know that there's been a lot of ice time that he's been partaking in, so he's definitely going to need to get it back quickly."

I'm thinking the second Bryzgalov told GM Chuck Fletcher a few days ago that he hadn't been on the ice since May was the second Kuemper's one-way contract was all but cemented.

I'll tell you what? Say what you want about Kuemper's agent – and Lord knows he has been bashed by Wild fans the past few weeks – the guy looks like a genius now. He held out all summer long for a one-way contract risking the fact that something would happen to Niklas Backstrom or Josh Harding. It certainly looked like the strategy was going to backfire, but then, boom, Harding somehow goes from completely healthy and ready to return to last year's first-half form to breaking his foot in some kind of careless act.

Quite amazing if you think about it.

Back to Bryz. Then I'll move on to Kuemper. Then I'll move on to Harding, and then we'll see where I'll move on to.

Bryzgalov, the enigmatic Russian goalie, was asked what he's been up to: "You know, I just was enjoying my life, you know. I was enjoying the family. That's all, pretty much."

Asked how many offers he got this summer, Bryzgalov said, "Ahhh, to be honest? … …" And then, with perfect delivery, "Zero," making a shape of a zero with his thumb and forefinger.

Man, did I miss this guy.

As I mentioned yesterday, Bryzgalov, despite guiding the Wild into the playoffs last year by being part of that leadership meeting in Phoenix that saved the season and going 7-1-3 down the stretch, had to put his pride away and accept a tryout. He knows there's no guarantees and he's not dumb. Now that Kuemper is here on a one-way, unless he completely stinks, Bryzgalov is now officially Backstrom/Kuemper insurance.

He said he spent the summer traveling a lot, going to Cyprus, Italy, Switzerland.

"I was just enjoying my life. I'm enjoying the family, enjoying my time, enjoying the life. There's lots of beautiful things in the life to do beside hockey."

(Especially when the Flyers are paying you almost $2 million a year til 2027 NOT to play hockey).

What did his family think about him taking the tryout?

"On one side, they're excited, on the other side they so get used to the summer," Bryzgalov said. "And right now, the family is a little bit sad because daddy got to go again. And for how long he goes, they don't know."

-- I can tell you, Kuemper has been skating in Saskatoon and has not been eating pizza and Cheetos all summer. He looks in shape and got a clean bill of health from the Wild docs. After taking his physical, Kuemper arrived at the arena just as the third group completed practice for the day.

"I saw him in the locker room for the first time and I was kidding around that he was able to get here just in time not to skate," Yeo said kiddingly. "I'm very pleased that we got him signed. I'm very happy for him, I'm very happy for us, and now it's time to get to work. It looks like he has taken very good care of himself just from what I've seen, but again, it's about when the puck drops, so tomorrow we'll get him on the ice and he'll partake in a practice and half a scrimmage and it'll give us a good chance to see where he's at."

Kuemper, wearing a Blue Jays cap, said, "It was a longer summer than I expected it to be, but I'm super excited to get it done and obviously to be back here now. Now that it's over with, just looking forward to the season and trying to pick up where we left off last year and build off the success that we've been having lately."

Kuemper said, "I was definitely getting a little anxious; obviously, I didn't want to miss camp or miss parts of it. Fortunately we got it done when we did. It would have been nice a few days earlier, but I'm here now and I'm super excited and looking forward to getting back out there with my teammates."

On the goalie carousel that has already transpired, Kuemper said, "I think it's a little early to say it's going to be like it was last year. I'm planning on staying healthy for the year, and I'm sure Nik is. And Bryz is back here, too. I don't want to jump the gun and say it's going to be like that because, you know, it's a good opportunity for our team here, and I'm sure we all just want to help the team as best we can."

On if he views himself as a No. 1, Kuemper said, "I definitely in camp will try to prove to the coaches and to the management that I can be that guy, and I'm going to do the best that I can to earn that spot. But I know that I will have to earn it. And I'm here to work hard."

Kuemper, who's a very popular teammates, especially with the young guys, was very excited to get in the room and see his old buddies again.

He said those two late-season concussions are behind him: "Actually I went home and took two weeks off or whatever, like most guys do when they get home, and I started working out again, and I had no issues. The whole summer I've been clean. Yeah, that's all in my past now."

On finding out Harding was hurt, Kuemper said, "My first reaction was I felt bad for him, everything he's been going through, and to be feeling healthy coming into the season and have something like that happen, I feel bad for him. I wish him all the best, and hopefully he recovers fast."

--Speaking of Harding, like James Sheppard in 2010, he'll be designated as an injured non-roster player when rosters are submitted in October. That means he doesn't get paid until he's healthy and he won't count vs. the cap, but he is allowed to be part of all team activities, use their facilities, rehab, go to games, etc.

On if the team feels it knows how he got hurt, Yeo said, "To the best that we could gather, I think we've got a pretty good feel (of what happened)."

-- The goaltending carousel is already a topic in the Wild room. Parise was asked about it today.

On Kuemper, Parise said, "I think that's good news for us, especially for Kuemper. We can't and he can't afford to miss camp, so it's a good thing that he's here. And I think seeing Bryz walk into the room puts a smile on everyone's face. I guess we're kind of back to where we were last year.
On the carousel, Parise said, "That's what we're dealt with, so we'll figure it out as we go. Unfortunately it's one of the storylines again, but that's the way it is right now.
On Backstrom, Parise said, "I think for his sake for him to be healthy again, it's good. And for us, we want to see him healthy again and playing the way he's capable of."

On the Parise-Granlund-Pominville line, Parise said, "It was fine. How much stock can you really put into these scrimmages? But I thought has far as puck control and touches and offensive zone
time, it was pretty good.

-- Here's Mike Yeo on some other subjects:

On the three groups of practices: "Going to three teams, looking for more reps, looking for more in-game situation, looking to get a lot more in-game competition and game-like situations to try to speed up the process as far getting our timing back and getting that in-game conditioning. It's a different conditioning when you're in the corner battling and when you get back in line and you have to go a little quicker as opposed to just being in the gym and riding the bike. Looking at our starts the last few years, we've had, I'd say, so-so starts, and so we felt we needed to try to do something different to see if we could get us off to a better start early in the season."

I wrote about Ryan Suter's emotional press scrum today on the previous blog and in Saturday's paper. Yeo on Suter: "I think with him, and I asked him when I talked to him the day before, we could have put him in the practice group, but if you know Suts, he just wants to play the game. it's fun when you coach guys when you've got players like this who still love to play the game, and he's one of those guys. And just how important he is as far as the way that he plays, the role that he has, I think it's important to get back into it. I know his conditioning is good. I know he hasn't done much here the last week, and that's understandable, but at the same time, you're not going to lose a lot when you've got a good base. He's had a good summer and I think it was important for him to get right back into it."

On the fitness level of the team and if there were any red flags: "You can do all the testing you want off the ice, but for me, I do it by eye. When I'm on the ice, when I see who's dragging at the start of practice, who was able to recover quickly, we've been around long enough that it doesn't take long to figure that out. I was very pleased with the conditioning level overall. Like every year, there's a couple that I feel aren't good enough, and that'll be addressed."

Uh-oh.

On how he'll figure out which goalie starts which preseason game, Yeo said, "The plan is to see how Bryz is tomorrow and then just the same the following day. Obviously, we've got six games here, and I want to make sure whoever we have in the net for Game 1, that we give him a good opportunity to be ready for that game, make sure that we give them enough games to feel that way. But also with that, we've got to make sure that we're using those games to determine and figure out who the right guy is for that.

On whether the Wild would maybe keep three goalies (no chance), Yeo said, "I really haven't thought that far ahead, to be honest with you. I'm not going to say that there's not a chance (I WILL), but obviously, that's probably not ideal. That said, I don't know that we've necessarily been a team that's been able to work in ideals the last year or so. I'm really not thinking that far ahead in that position. I think it's unique for us. We usually like to have more of a set plan in place as far as how many games they're going to play and who we're going with, but this is a different situation, a different scenario that we have to treat differently."

I chatted with a number of players today, from Christian Folin and Thomas Vanek to Stu Bickel and Jordan Schroeder. I haven't transcribed those yet, so you'll hear from them tomorrow or the next day. Rachel talked with Backstrom and that'll be in her story.

My fingers hurt, so adios. I'll be on KFAN at 5:55 p.m. I'll also be on Fox 9 Sports Now with Dawn Mitchell at 10:15 p.m.