Wild Management tell Gabby this is where you want to be.

This was an article that I read in yesterdays Star and Tribune and it is a must read for Wild hockey fans. It would seem to appear that some of the players like Marian Gaborik are getting tired of the defense first offense second approach to hockey. As a fan I am getting tired of watching it myself. I am sure I can get my buddy Redwing_77 to agree with me as well.

So what do we take form this? Even with Jacque Lemaire's boring defensive style of play; according the Wild management, isn't holding Gabby's offensive numbers down. I am not sure I believe this. Gaborik is all the offense the Wild have. Of course Gaborik is going to get the share of the points offensively. This would make sense why Olli Jokinen, Mats Sundin, Marian Hossa and Peter Forsberg don't want to play for the Wild.

General Manager Doug Risebrough and assistant GM Tom Lynn met with the star forward in Slovakia.

By MICHAEL RUSSO, Star Tribune

Marian Gaborik doesn't need to play in another city to be among the top scorers in the NHL.

That was the message Wild management delivered to Gaborik during a four-hour dinner meeting last week in Trencin, Slovakia -- the first step in a journey the Wild hopes ends in a long-term extension to Gaborik's contract before next season.

With Gaborik, 26, less than 11 months from becoming an unrestricted free agent, General Manager Doug Risebrough and assistant GM Tom Lynn met with Gaborik on Monday. The two wanted to convince Gaborik, the Wild's all-time leading scorer with 206 goals and 414 points, that Minnesota is the place to be.

Gaborik could not be reached to comment, but Lynn called it a "great dinner and meeting."

"We showed him a lot more info than any player has ever seen before -- how we scout, how we measure players statistically," Lynn said. "We also listened to his opinions.

"We just talked about the team, how we operate and where we are going, and then his performance and place in the future. So I would say it was a good meeting in that (a) it happened, and (b) Marian had good input, observations and understanding."

One objective for Risebrough and Lynn was to prove to Gaborik he's not being impeded from scoring in Minnesota's defensive-minded system.

Lynn considers it a myth, one Gaborik seemed to believe when, at last season's All-Star Game, he said, "Sometimes you think how it could be in an Eastern system, in a more offensive system. There's more offense there for sure."

But at last week's dinner, Risebrough and Lynn showed Gaborik that, since the lockout, he's fourth in the NHL in goals per game (behind Alex Ovechin, Ilya Kovalchuk and Dany Heatley), first in even-strength goals per minute played and tied for second in goals per 60 minutes played (behind Ovechkin).

(Read the rest of the article here)