A day after losing Kyle Anderson to Golden State, Minnesota agreed to terms with another veteran with playmaking chops to potentially take his place.

The Timberwolves and forward Joe Ingles have agreed to a one-year deal, a source confirmed to the Pioneer Press. ESPN first reported the deal.

Ingles — who will be 37 years old by the start of next season — is a smart veteran who’s capable of running an offense if needed and also knocks down the deep ball at a high clip.

The 6-foot-9 forward is a 41 percent 3-point shooter for his career on 4.2 attempts per game. He had a slightly diminished role last season in Orlando — with his minute load dipping to 17 per game — but he did shoot 44 percent from three for the Magic.

The second-unit playmaking will likely be something Wolves coach Chris Finch relies upon. It was one of the main reasons Finch adored Anderson. Ingles isn’t nearly the defender Anderson is, but he’s a far superior shooter, which was a much-have addition for Minnesota this offseason as opponents continue to bog down the paint against Anthony Edwards.

Ingles also comes with the benefit of significant experience with Minnesota’s existing veterans. He played with Mike Conley and Rudy Gobert for numerous years in Utah, joining them for multiple playoff runs. Ingles knows how to successfully utilize Gobert’s abilities to enhance the overall offense.

And while Rob Dillingham — who the team moved up to No. 8 in last month’s NBA Draft to select — is in the team’s immediate plans as a scoring punch off the bench, Ingles can potentially take some ballhandling and playmaking duties off the 19-year-old’s shoulders as he acclimates to the NBA.

Jason Bracelin | Las Vegas Review-Journal (TNS)

LAS VEGAS — A joystick with a pulse, that’s what we’ve become.

An orb of light shoots our way, heading toward our toes.

Kick it!

Contact made, it rockets back in the other direction, where a team of four returns fire.

Back and forth it goes as we volley the pulsating sphere, trying to boot it past each other in order to score a goal.

It’s a Friday afternoon, and we’re engaged in a quick session of “Light Hockey.”

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The game — which is kind of like playing air hockey while standing atop the table; also, you’re in cyberspace — is one of dozens featured here at the Electric Playhouse, a high-tech new attraction that opened in June at the Forum Shops at Caesars, where nearly nearly surface pulses with visuals so brightly colored and enveloping, it feels like our eyeballs have been swallowed by a herd of hungry rainbows.

The 10,000-square-foot venue, which bills itself as “a social gaming destination,” is designed to be a bridge between digital and physical realms, one that poses the question: Instead of merely playing a video game, wouldn’t it be more fun to inhabit one?

“You can get lost in a video game — they’re just so immersive,” notes Brandon Garrett, Electric Playhouse’s CEO and co-founder. “And so to me, as a parent, what better way to convince my kids to get off an iPad or off the screen than to say, ‘Why don’t we just literally, physically step into that world?’ ”

‘Infinite’ experiences

Think of it as a VR experience without the goofy headset.

That’s kind of what it feels like navigating the Electric Playhouse, which is posited on state-of-the-art body-mapping technology utilizing around 110 projectors and 50 sensors throughout the venue.

“What we’ve done is installed a series of sensors throughout the entire facility that basically tracks your motion and creates what we call a point cloud,” Garrett explains. “It’s basically an avatar of yourself. And so you become a player in a video game world.”

As you move through the place, the walls, floors and tables react to your movements with 360-degree projection-mapping following your every step.

“I’ve been wandering all over the Strip, seeing a bunch of pre-rendered content,” notes Luke Balaoro, Electric Playhouse’s senior software architect and co-founder. “What’s really cool — and what differentiates us — is our real-time rendering. We’re taking in a lot of sensor data, we’re processing it, and we’re making it react to people, making games out of it.”

The gaming layout is divided among numerous “pods,” designed for one to two players who can choose from around 12 different games that range from “Crystalius,” where alien spaceships are targeted, to “Paint Pong,” where you create your own artwork.

Then there’s the larger arena area, where we play “Light Hockey,” and which can accommodate around two dozen players.

Guests pay by the hour and have access to all the games, which are created in-house in order to maintain a fresh, ever-growing selection.

“We build everything,” Garrett says. “And so, as we’re adding to the library, every time you come back it could be a completely different experience. It’s one physical footprint, but almost an infinite amount of experiences that we can pack into this facility.”

From New Mexico to new digs

The tables and walls flutter with butterflies, swarm with cartoon bugs and pulse with ocean waves, as if we’re plunging through some aquatic depths in the desert, somehow.

We’re in one of three party rooms at the Electric Playhouse, which are designed to host everything from birthday celebrations to corporate events to ticketed dining experiences (the Electric Playhouse’s culinary program is set to debut this summer).

“The magic here is the tabletop itself is actually interactive,” Garrett explains with a swoop of the hand, making the aforementioned bugs scatter.

This is the Electric Playhouse’s second location, having been launched in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in early 2020, just six weeks before the pandemic hit.

“For us, Vegas just made sense,” Garrett says of the company’s westward expansion, “because we’re trying to build our own brand, and what better place to do that than the world stage in Vegas?”

There are some unique-to-the-market flourishes here, namely an outdoor balcony offering killer views of the Strip and a new twist on an old staple: the Vegas wedding.

“We see huge opportunity for weddings within this space,” Garrett says. “You want to get married in the clouds or some total fantasy thing and make it a true destination?”

In the meantime, there are more games to build, more “Light Hockey” goals to be scored.

“There’s just so many ways we can kind of continue to bridge this physical/digital realm,” Garrett says. “I feel like a kid in a candy store every day. I mean, we’re constantly like, ‘Oh, my God, we can do that?’”

©2024 Las Vegas Review-Journal. Visit reviewjournal.com.. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

After an NHL season that ends short of a Stanley Cup — and especially one that finished short of the postseason — a coaching staff has to take a hard, cold look at what went wrong.

Certainly that applies to the Minnesota Wild, and it wasn’t hard to find defects, after the team missed the postseason for just the second time in 12 seasons. And while a series of injuries to key players that almost became farce might have defined the team’s 2023-24 season, it wasn’t all about bad luck.

“You’re looking for different ways to make your team better,” head coach John Hynes said this week, “and one of those ways that we felt, obviously, was penalty killing.”

Eight of the 10 teams with the worst penalty kills last season missed the playoffs, and the two that made it to the postseason — Toronto and the New York Islanders — were bounced in the first round. The Wild had one of the NHL’s worst, their 74.5 percent success rate worse than everyone except the Islanders (71.5) and Anaheim (72.4).

To that end, the Wild announced two offseason moves this week, signing winger Yakov Trenin to a four-year, $14 million free-agent deal, and adding former Islanders head coach Jack Capuano to the coaching staff.

“Jack is very, very passionate about the PK,” Wild general manager Bill Guerin said. “He’s always had a good track record with it. So, we’re looking to definitely improve in that aspect.”

You can add Jake Middleton’s four-year, $17.4 million contract extension to that plan. He was already under contract for next season, but will be part of the team that Guerin hopes will enter its prime over the next several seasons.

On a team that lost Jared Spurgeon, Jonas Brodin and Marcus Foligno for long stretches — then traded away Connor Dewar and Brandon Duhaime — Middleton was the most consistent penalty killer last season, leading the team in blocks (161), and was third in hits (148 hits).

Hynes said Monday that Capuano, a colleague on international coaching staffs, will run the defense and work with Patrick Dwyer on reconstructing a penalty kill that gave up 67 power-play goals last season, second only to Anaheim’s 91. Trenin, another big body at 6-foot-2, 200 pounds, averaged 150.5 shorthanded minutes the past two seasons.

“He’s definitely going to help in that department,” Guerin said of Trenin. “It’s something that he’s very good at. We did not have a good year last year on the PK.”

To get better next season, Guerin is, of course, relying on something out of anyone’s control. Injuries threw a wrench into everything last season, and there is no guarantee they won’t happen again. In fact, in the NHL, the season without major injury losses, for any amount of time, is rare.

And then there is the uncertainty surrounding players such as Marcus Johansson and Freddy Gaudreau, who plain underperformed in 2023-24, combining for 16 goals and 29 points in a combined 144 games. You can add mercurial forward Ryan Hartman to that wish list.

Hartman was pretty good last season — 21 goals, 45 points and a plus-4 in 74 games. But when he signed Hartman to a three-year, $12 million extension last fall, Guerin was hoping for more from a skilled player who had career highs of 34 goals and 65 points in 2021-22.

The Wild believe improving the penalty kill is something mostly in their control. They want the Wild to regain the identity of being a heavy team that is hard to play against in all situations. Regardless of the composition of a PK unit, Hynes said, “There’s got to be a mindset on the penalty kill.”

Guerin and Hynes are even thinking of moving talented forward Matt Boldy into the mix. He played some PK for Team USA in international play this spring under head coach Hynes.

“With how dynamic the power plays are, nothing’s ever static. So, you’ve gotta have guys that can make reads and have experience doing it,” Hynes said. “Trenin’s certainly a guy that is a very good penalty killer. So, I think when you have guys that can do it, and then you coach it the right way, it should be a significant improvement for us.”

After playing against Trenin in the Central Division the past few seasons, Middleton is sold on Trenin.

“I think it’s a great signing,” he said. “He is hard to play against. He forechecks like an animal. He finishes every check. Great penalty kill. … I’ve never been on the power play, but I’ve watched him kill penalties. Good at that. I think it’s a good pickup.”

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