Clayton Stoner Cross-Checks Andrew Shaw in the Face

Anaheim Ducks defenseman Clayton Stoner was very lucky that he's still in the game. Stoner cross-checks Marcus Kruger from behind, causing him to slide face first into the end boards. Kruger suffered a minor cut for his efforts.

But Stoner wasn't done. The Ducks defender goes on to perform oral surgery on Andrew Shaw.

To quote Brendan Shanahan, "this was a blatant attempt to injure an opponent." In other words, this was an egregious act that deserved a penalty. Also, I think that Shaw has an expectation to not be cross-checked in the face. The play is basically over.

If I was the commissioner of the NHL, these are the types of plays that would be highly punished. My question is, would this hit be worthy of a call from the Department of Player Safety. Is this suspension worthy?

(Video) Clayton Stoner Hit On Max Pacioretty

I was watching the video on this play and I am still wondering why Anaheim Ducks defenseman Clayton Stoner wasn't given a major penalty for this hit on Montreal Canadiens forward Max Pacioretty? You can break a guys neck with a hit like this. Should this have been a major penalty?

Clean hit. Period. - Canadiens' Pacioretty hospitalized after Clayton Stoner hit - NHL on CBC Sports http://t.co/2PIDaYg6Yu
— TheBieser (@thebieser) December 19, 2014

Wild Roster Moves Leave Promising Look to Upcoming Season

Well Wild fans, you all got your wish, and at a discounted price at that. Thomas Vanek has come "home" for the next three seasons to play with the Minnesota Wild. Although Vanek was the only real big splash the Wild made in the off-season thus far, they are working on resigning much of their young talent by the start of the upcoming season.

However, with new signings come people losing a spot on the roster. Among the losses are Dany Heatley, much to the joy of the Wild fans, and Clayton Stoner both going to the Anaheim Ducks. Heatley was just a thorn in the Minnesota Wild's salary cap and with him gone a lot of room opened up. With Stoner, however, the wild lose 2/3 of the grit they had in the line-up, the other third going to Matt Cooke.

If there is a road block in the upcoming season for the Wild, I think this is the spot to have it. Yes, they will have guys who like to hit some, like Matt Dumba and Keith Ballard, but there won't be that one guy who will drop the gloves when the team needs a kick start or protection from an opposing teams enforcer. If push came to shove, I'm sure Ballard or Brodziak would drop the gloves if absolutely needed, but I think it's still not enough.

The other big question is with the goaltending. People keep asking me why we didn't buy out Backstrom's contract, but due to him being injured at the end of the season, by NHL rule, they were not allowed to. So Backstrom is here to stay, for now. Now Josh Harding. He was having a Veznia Trophy type first half until he was sidelined by a change to his MS medications and didn't play for the rest of the season. Harding is expected to be in training camp come September and is expected to be on the opening day roster come October barring any setbacks. Finally, we have rookie sensation,

Darcy Kuemper and Ilya Bryzgalov. Bryz is not getting signed, as I'm sure much of you probably figured out after the season was over. As for Kuemper, he is still an unsigned restricted free agent and looking like he might be going into arbitration to come to terms on a new contract with the Wild. So who is going to be number one on opening night? I'd put money on Josh Harding with Kuemper as his back-up. Backstrom is the thrid goalie on roster, but remains a healthy scratch.

Now, the rest of the roster. With the additions made, and with who is returning for the upcoming season, I think that the Wild will have one of the most feared rosters in the NHL. All four forward lines have speed and the potential to score, especially with a healthy Zucker, and a returning Fontaine to solidify an already potent roster of wingers. Up the middle of the ice Minnesota still has the three Finish centers, Captain Mikko Koivu, Mikael Granlund, and rookie sensation Erik Haula. I'd say that those three have a solidified roster spot this season, but as for the fourth center who knows. You have to start with the veteran Kyle Brodziak, but if his game starts to slip in his fourth line role, its still nice to have a couple of options. Recently signed Jordan Schroeder would likely be a good fit on the fourth line as well, and probably is the odd man out as of right now, but you can always slide Charlie Coyle to the center spot and call up another recent signing in Brett Sutter to play on the wing.

The defensive core will be a little easier to keep track of this upcoming season. Your top line will still be Brodin and Suter. Spurgeon likely plays with Scandella and Ballard likely plays with the young Matt Dumba to start the season

. After that, there is Jonathan Blum waiting for his chance to slide back into the line-up and another former Golden Gopher signing, Stu Bickel, waiting right after him. I don't see much change in how things operated back here from last season, but I would like to see a little less of the load put on Suter's shoulders. Will it happen? Probably not, but if he gets cut to around 25 minutes per game, I think he could produce as well as Shea Webber, or Duncan Keith.

Here is how the opening day line-up will look like in my opinion:

Parise-Granlund-Pominville
Vanek-Koivu-Coyle
Cooke-Haula-Niederreiter
Zucker-Brodziak-Fontaine

Suter-Brodin
Scandella-Spurgeon
Ballard-Dumba

Harding
Kuemper

Scratches:
Almond, Backstrom, Sutter, Blum, Bickel, Schroder, and Veilleux

This is an opening day line-up, I think, can be rivaled to any line-up in the entire NHL. I think this is the year that the Minnesota Wild are finally considered as one of the elite teams in the NHL, provided that they stay healthy. This season is looking very promising for the boys in red and green, and could be one Minnesotans have been waiting for for a very long time.

Minnesota Wild: Erik Haula scores a sweet goal in game six (Video)

Minnesota Wild forward Erik Haula scored a beautiful goal against the Chicago Blackhawks in game six of the Western Conference Semifinals. The Blackhawks would win the game and series in overtime with a goal from Patrick Kane.

During the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Haula gave us a glimpse of things to come and tells us that the future is very bright for the Minnesota Wild hockey team.

02:29 MIN Erik Haula (4) Wrist shot - ASST: Matt Cooke (3), Clayton Stoner (2)

(Video) Minnesota Wild and Colorado Avalanche end of game scrum

Feisty end to a very good game between the Wild and Avalanche.

20:00 MIN Clayton Stoner Misconduct (10 min) - 10 min against Patrick Bordeleau
20:00 COL Patrick Bordeleau Misconduct (10 min) - 10 min against Clayton Stoner
20:00 COL Cody McLeod Misconduct (10 min) - 10 min against Nate Prosser
20:00 MIN Nate Prosser Misconduct (10 min) - 10 min against Cody McLeod

Wild score their empty net goal to go up 4-2, Yeo with a fist pump http://t.co/T3u8QOBCWK
— Steph (@myregularface) April 29, 2014

Clayton Stoner's first goal of the year - GIF

s/t to cjzero... Who would have thought that Minnesota Wild defenseman Clayton Stoner has moves like this? That's his first goal of the year.

Are the Wild a soft team?

English: Kadri at the 2010 world juniors (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

From Michael Russo's blog today. Russo asked Yeo about the Wild being called a quote-unquote “soft” team.

“First off, obviously who’s the first [player] to jump on top of him [Kadri]?” Yeo said. “[Ryan] Suter. So to say that we didn’t do anything, that’s false actually. And if you want to get into it, it’s this simple really: They’ve got [Colton] Orr on the bench, they’ve got [Fraser] McLaren (he actually didn’t play, so I’m not positive whom Yeo meant), they’ve got [Mark Fraser]. They’ve got one after another. So if we go after Kadri, well, are they going to go after Konopka? No. They’re going to go after one of our top guys. They’ve got more down the line where they can keep playing that game.

“So where we have to be better is on the power play. Teams have to be afraid to pull that crap on us [because] they’re fearful of our power play. But at the same time, what I like is that our guys continued to play the game. I’ll take exception with anybody that tries to call us soft because that’s not true. Where it’d be soft is if they tried to have a physical impact on us. And as far as I’m concerned, we raised our game. And that to me is tough[ness]. It’s a different type of tough.

I think there's a good point here. Does Ryan Suter beat the crap out of Nazem Kadri and negate the power play or do the Minnesota Wild wait and pick a time to challenge Kadri later in the game. I say take the power play. The best way to make the Leafs pay is on the power play in that situation. Also, the Toronto Maple Leafs are full of cement heads and the Wild only have Zenon Konopka and Clayton Stoner, there's not a lot of other fighters on the Wild. That's not their game. I don't think their a soft team either.

Clayton Stoner hammers Alex Burrows

Minnesota Wild Defenseman Clayton Stoner lays the woods to Vancouver Canucks forward fraud Alex Burrows. This a textbook legal hit. So far through one period this is the only bright spot for the Minnesota Wild.

Clayton Stoner first NHL goal...

If you didn't watch the Wild game on Versus last night; check out Clayton Stoner's first NHL goal, you just don't see goals like this very often. Chalk up a game winning goal for Clayton Stoner as well...