Stanzel’s Sports Takeout — BREAKING TAKEOUT NEWS: 2-8-23.
Tell a friend to sign up for The Takeout today: https://cutt.ly/5jc87CG.
My favorite Pulltab read of the week - Here Comes Wally, a feature by my former Iowa Wild counterpart Josh Fisher on future Wild star goalie Jesper Wallstedt.
LeBron passes Kareem for NBA scoring King. The top three of modern era, in my humble opinion, Jordan, Kobe, King James.
Wolves Ripped in Denver
The Timberwolves didn’t give management much confidence to go for it at tomorrow’s trade deadline. They gave up 49 (!!) in a pitiful first quarter and lost 146-112 to West-leading Denver last night. D-Lo even saw enough, getting ejected in the second half.
Minnesota had just blown out Denver at home two nights prior, although the Nuggets didn’t have their full array of stars. Last night in Denver, Nikola Jokic had a triple double - in the first half! The Wolves shot 28 percent from three, had 17 turnovers and caused just five.
It could make for an interesting Thursday. D-Lo is your one asset that could really get something in return, and sure he takes some nights off, but he’s your one outside threat. You’d have to get something similar back. Taurean Prince could net you a decent player, but is a decent player going to make any difference in this tight Western Conference playoff race?
The Wolves don’t have much time to rebound - they’re in Utah tonight.
Hartman’s Latest (Last?) Chance Alongside Kaprizov
Two weeks ago, Ryan Hartman was scratched for a multitude of bad penalties. Just two nights after yet another ill-timed march to the box, Dean Evason slid Hartman back to the top line alongside Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello.
Evan is clearly hoping Hartman can find magic on that line, again. The former first-round pick of the Blackhawks scored 34 goals and added 31 assists a year ago, most nights playing with Kaprizov and Zuccarello. He’s scored more than 10 goals once in his career, and his 2021-22 looks like one of the biggest outliers in NHL history. This year? He was injured early, but five goals in 27 games and a whopping 49 penalty minutes.
Now, this move is as much of an indictment on Sam Steele as anything else. Probably at best a third line center, Steele has spent much of the last two-plus months on that top line. Because? The Wild’s still looking for its first No. 1 center in, well, history to be completely honest. Steele has zero points in his last seven games, despite who he’s playing with.
The Wild dropped a 3-2 decision at Arizona on Monday. The first game back after a week long break can be ugly. And it was. But the Coyotes were dealing with the same thing, albeit they were playing at home. Minnesota looked sluggish, disoriented and disinterested much of the night. They were only in the game because the Coyotes hit three posts in a short span in the second period.
Back to Hartman. You do have to wonder if the Wild will try to move him at the deadline despite its lack of depth up the middle. He’s got a very team friendly contract. You may actually get something for him strictly because of his 34 goal season plus the fact he was a first-round pick. The problem is, the time to sell was months ago, not now.
That would free up room for Marco Rossi or Sammy Walker up front. The Wild just has to get younger and faster at the forward position, and more skilled at 5-on-5. I’d expect to see one of them soon.
The Wild is at Dallas tonight before returning home for seven games that will decide a lot what the 2023 trade deadline will look like.
Flores is Vikings’ New Defensive Coordinator
The Vikings got their man, as Brian Flores eschewed a chance to become Arizona’s head coach to become Minnesota’s defensive coordinator. Flores is the former Miami Dolphins’ coach who is suing the NFL and three teams for racism in hiring practices. Additionally, he alleged the Dolphins tanked games in order to get a better draft pick.
There’s a lot of positivity around this hiring, and it’ll be interesting to see how the defense does. The Vikings have a lot of veterans and a lot of extremely young players. They aren’t blessed with soon-to-be stars. Most of their veterans are on the wrong side of 30 as they say. They’ll need some sort of combintation of upgrade in scheme and personnel to not make Kirk Cousins need to throw 50 passes per game to win.
Jared Allen - USA Curling Champ?
Jared Allen, last month named a Pro Football Hall of Fame finalist, is competing - and nicely - in the USA Curling Championships this week in Denver. Allen actually got into curling on a team of former NFL’ers including Marc Bulger. He’s on Team Smith (Jason, of St. Paul), which is 3-1 through its first four matches.
Allen is a big, happy story, but I’m all about defending Olympic champ Team Shuster. Friend of The Takeout Chris Plys is on Team Shuster and is an amazing human being. Team Shuster is 3-1, with the lone loss coming to Allen’s team.
The USA Championships go through Saturday. You can stream them here. Allen curls at 11 a.m. Central today.
Gopher BB
The Gopher men’s game in Illinois tonight was postponed due to Covid cases in the Minnesota program. The Gophers don’t exactly have any healthy bodies lying in wait. They’ll host Iowa on Sunday.
The Gopher women are at Ohio State tonight.
Sponsor The Takeout
Sponsorship packages are available! The Takeout is a great spot to advertise your small business. Get thousands of eyeballs on your product every month. E-mail ryanstanzel@gmail.com
