Heatly And Setoguchi Excited To Play For The Wild
Added on Jul 12, 2011 by J Merrill in
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If you would have asked Dany Heatly or Devin Setoguchi where they would be playing in the 2011-12 season they probably wouldn’t have told you they would be Minnesota playing for the Wild. None of that matters now as they are both on the ground in Minnesota training with their new club. The wild were able to pick up both players from the Sharks. They got Heatley in a straight swap for Martin Havlat, and in a separate trade they landed Setoguchi at the Entry Draft in a deal that sent defenseman Brent Burns to the Sharks.
Setoguchi had signed a 3 year deal with the Sharks just hours before the deal was done, and he admitted he had no idea. He said “No, not at all. I was just more excited that I signed the new contract. And then the next day you get shipped off. But that’s the way it is. That’s sports. You can never get too comfortable and things happen for a reason. They wanted me here and I want to be here. I want to be a big part to this team and help out. I’m excited to be here and get a fresh start.”
Setoguchi had never been traded before, and seems to be handling it well. He is also looking forward to playing with Heatly, “I think it’s good that I get a chance to come here with Dany. I heard him just say before he had a little bit of a down year last year. I never heard of someone scoring 26 goals having a down year. That’s kind of hard to do. In his standards, he wants to score 50 every year. So it’s going to make the transition a lot easier coming here with him.” He concluded by saying that there will be no surprises on what he will do on the ice. He said “You’re going to find that I’m just going to shoot the puck. That’s all that I try to do. I get the puck, I shoot it. I don’t hold onto it, I don’t make nice, really sweet plays with it. I just shoot it. I’m going to skate and shoot and hit, and that’s my plan.”
Heatly has been traded before and this will be the fourth team he has taken the ice with. He also admitted he had no idea the trade was coming down. He said “I think you approach it the same. The way the trades have gone down has been different. This is the first one that I didn’t know was coming, so that is different. But from the point of just a new team and new excitement, I think it’s the same. This is Seto’s first time (being traded). I’ve been traded a few times. There’s kind of a sense of a fresh start. There’s a bit of excitement. He’s excited and so am I.”
Minnesota Wild General Manager said that they are excited to have Heatly and Setoguchi, and he feels he has filled a glaring hole in their offense. He said “I think everybody saw that last year, the last two years, and whether you were a fan or a coach or up in the press box eating popcorn, I think clearly we didn’t score enough goals and we didn’t shoot the puck enough. There’s a direct correlation between shots on goal and goals scored, so we’re a team that’s going to put an emphasis on putting the pucks in the net, playing in the offensive zone and playing in traffic, getting to the net. Certainly both of those guys do things well in the offensive zone, and that’s why they’re here.”
He also said the Wild’s main goal is to make it into the post season and do well, and both are players who know what its like. “It’s been three years since we’ve been there now, and that’s our goal, to get better every day and get back in the playoffs,” he said. “I think the Western Conference is a very, very tough conference. It’s going to be tough games all year long, but I believe we can get in the playoffs and once we do, anything can happen once you get there.”
