Stanley Cup Finals began tonight. What do the Wild have to say about missing the playoffs?
The Stanley Cup Finals began tonight. The Wild aren't there nor did they make the playoffs. Only one former Wild player is in the Cup finals as well, but what do the current Wild players have to say about not being in the playoffs?
Here's what many Wild players said on Media day in April about not competing in this year's Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Mats Zuccarello
"I mean, obviously we knew for a little bit now, but it is a tough feeling. It's like an empty feeling, what to do now, who's going to tell us what to do every day and it's not a good feeling, but sometimes good things happen after something bad happens.
"So hopefully next year's going to be way better. But I don't think anyone enjoys this feeling. Even you guys, what are you going to do?"
Marc-Andre Fleury
“Disappointing, that’s for sure. We all love our team here, we all love the bunch of guys we have in the room, it’s definitely a tough season for the fans, right, for the organization. It’s a tough one to be missing playoffs here, Yeah, it sucks. More fun playing in the playoffs.”
Matt Boldy
"First time for me. It’s disappointing. You want to make the playoffs. That’s the goal. You want to have a chance to win. Unfortunately, we don’t."
Marcus Foligno
"It’s frustrating not making playoffs. This is a place that deserves playoff hockey and the fans definitely deserve it and when you don’t make it you let them down. And just personally not being around and being injured again has been frustrating.
"But you know, we got to make sure that we’re a playoff caliber team next season and that’s the mindset. So, yeah, this just feels like a total one off and a year that kind of slipped out of our hands pretty fast."
Filip Gustavsson
"It sucks. Sucks that it’s over. We came into the season [thinking] that we wanted to get by the first round. Now we didn’t even get the chance to try and do that. It’s just empty."
Kirill Kaprizov
“Yeah, for sure. You start playing hockey early season you think of course. We try all the time. This year we try make playoffs, too. This not happen. But for us I hope we take these mistakes, learn from these mistakes, and can be better next year.”
Will he Watch?
“Yeah, I watch sometimes. Sometimes. I don’t know. I don’t think I want to watch a lot.”
Joel Eriksson Ek
"Yeah, I mean, it’s an empty feeling. This is not where you want to be. This is not where we want to be as a team, either. Like I said, it’s more like an empty feeling."
Ryan Hartman
"Yeah. You know, we want to be in a position to win a Stanley Cup. We’ve got to hone in on some of the mistakes. Going over stuff, there just seemed like some little things this year that broke our team down a little bit. Obviously injuries play a part in that with some guys. Seemed a lot this year there was maybe that next play, where you get the puck out and the situation, you have a two-on-one, it seemed like a lot of times this year where that next play wasn’t made.
" In years past, it was. Opposed to having a two-on-one, the puck is kept in, and now we’re back in our zone. I think the level of urgency and bearing down is one of those areas that needs to be improved. It will. That’s for everybody, myself and up and down our lineup needs to be better in that aspect."
Brock Faber
"Yeah it sucks right? It's all you really strive for. To get into the playoffs and try to win a Stanley Cup. It sucks. But that's just all the more motivation for next year."
Marco Rossi
"Yeah to be honest it sucks. We don’t want to end the season at all. You want to make the playoffs. The goal is always to win the Stanley Cup. So disappointing year but I think it’s also a year we can learn a lot. And it just makes us hungry for next year."
Bill Guerin
"Getting to the season I can honestly say that this was a crazy one. It’s disappointing where we are. Not making the playoffs is disappointing. This was basically a season of inconsistencies. There were some really good stretches. There were some real tough stretches. Our start was slow. We were behind the eight ball right away and in this league that’s unforgiving. You can’t afford to start the way we did and expect to give yourself a shot at the playoffs. So we put ourselves behind the eight ball early."
"We’ll get over the hump. We didn’t even get to the hump this year."
John Hynes
“I would say the guys in general are disappointed. They’re disappointed in how the season went, certainly disappointed in not being able to make the playoffs. I liked a lot of their responses. I think as Mike said, there weren’t excuses; there were things that we could have controlled, collectively as a group or individuals where we didn’t do a good enough job of that. That’s encouraging to me.”
“I think individually with players there were good meetings. There was honest feedback, honest communication. There were plans for us moving forward, check-ins in the summer. I thought the feedback on the team in general was very good. But I give the guys credit today. We wanted to make this day productive and spend quality time with them and have some honest conversations. But to me it’s not about reading the riot act. It’s understanding what we need to do to get better collectively, individually — and then the next part is we want to follow up. It’s one thing to have these meetings and you don’t talk again, but continuing to build the relationships, the accountability, evening throughout the offseason, is important to make sure that we are all back together, on the same page, better individually, which will make us better collectively when we get back to training camp.”
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