Souhan; Playing Parise May Have Been the Turning Point [PODCAST]

The Minnesota Wild are set to play at Vegas tonight in Game 7 of their first round playoff series at 8 p.m., pregame on AM 1390/93.9 FM Granite City Sports at 7:45. Star Tribune Sports Columnist Jim Souhan joined me on WJON today. He says when Zach Parise was made active for Game 4 the Wild got a bit of an energy jolt they hadn't had earlier in the series. Souhan says "it is clear that Parise should have been playing all along". The Wild were the better team in Games 5 and 6 and Souhan says Parise's energy was a big part of that. He says it is possible that Parise could carve out a role for himself to stay on the team next season. Parise has 4 years remaining on his contract but the two sides appeared to be heading to a point where Parise would need to be moved because of the amount of healthy scratches he had had including Games 1-3 in this series.

Timberwolves/Lynx majority owner Glen Taylor has an agreement to sell the teams to the ownership team of Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez. Jim Souhan says the new group could move the team but is is more likely that the NBA will expand to Seattle and Las Vegas which could also open the door for the Wolves to move to the Eastern Conference. Jim says playing more games in the Central time zone against Chicago, Detroit and Milwaukee would make more sense than what they are currently doing.

The Twins open a 3-game series at home against Kansas City tonight at 7:10, pregame on WJON at 6:30. Jim says tonight's starting pitcher Randy Dobnak is probably better suited to start than relief. Souhan says there isn't a timeline yet for Byron Buxton to participate in rehab games but maybe next week they will know more.