DENVER — There were a few Wild players who didn’t know whether they’d still be Wild players by Friday afternoon. Marc-Andre Fleury was not one of them.

The future hall of fame goaltender who passed 1,000 NHL games and moved into second place on the career victories list this season, made it clear to Wild general manager Bill Guerin that he didn’t want to finish the season anywhere else ahead of Friday’s 2 p.m. CST trade deadline.

Fleury, who turned 39 in November, has a no-trade clause in a two-year, $7 million contract extension that expires after the season, but Guerin didn’t need the veteran to veto a trade. He just didn’t entertain any.

Asked after backstopping a 5-2 victory at Arizona on Thursday whether he had any second thoughts about going to a contender, Fleury said, “We’re a little behind, obviously, but still battling.”

With two straight victories going into Friday’s 8 p.m. puck drop at Colorado, the Wild are, in fact, still in a playoff chase but, as Fleury noted, “a little bit behind” — although they picked up two points on sliding Vegas on Thursday and are now seven out of the West’s second wild card spot.

Fleury has been a big reason. After stopping 23 of 25 shots on Thursday — many of which left Arizona players shaking their heads — Fleury is 6-2-0 with a .921 save percentage and 2.16 goals-against average in his past 10 appearances.

His march into NHL history has been the highlight of a disappointing season, which started with a 5-10-4 thud that cost Dean Evason his job. And his mein, a rare combination of intense competitiveness and amiable personality, has been a beacon in a sometimes dark dressing room.

“To have the chance to play in front of him is special,” veteran forward Ryan Hartman said after Fleury played in his 1,000th NHL game on New Year’s Eve, a 4-2 loss to Winnipeg at Xcel Energy Center.

During fall camp, Fleury said he will decide whether to retire at season’s end, something he has reiterated a few times throughout the season, his 20th. With three Stanley Cup championships, 557 career victories — second only to childhood idol Martin Brodeur’s 691 — and 1,015 games played, he has nothing unchecked on the bucket list. But he also has been playing well, still flashing the form that made him a living hockey legend.

On Thursday, he kept the Wild in the game with a series of highlight reel saves until the Wild got four third-period goals, two of them empty-netters, to put the Coyotes away.

In the first period, he pivoted right to rob Dylan Guenther on a one-timer, leaving the Arizona wing to smack his stick on the ice and shake his head. Later, he stopped Michael Carcone on a two-on-one, making the save on his one-timer from the corner of the crease.

And Fleury’s decision to stick with the Wild and chase a longshot playoff hope has meant a lot to teammates who look up to him.

“It’s huge,” said Zach Bogosian, who scored a timely goal to tie Thursday’s game 2-2 and cap a three-goal flurry in the first two minutes of the third period. The Wild watched popular teammate Brandon Duhaime leave for Colorado before Thursday’s morning skate, and were unsure who else might be headed out before Friday’s deadline.

“Everyone cares about each other in this room, and we understand that there are certain things that are out of players’ control,” said Bogosian, who signed a two-year, $2.5 million contract extension on Wednesday. “Obviously, we love Flower, and he’s played awesome for us every time he’s in the net.”

Fleury started the season as backup/mentor to Filip Gustavsson, but with his recent play, he has been the team’s best goalie as it fights to stay alive for a fourth consecutive playoff appearance.

“It’s been fun, playing those games, and winning some games and feeling good, feeling like I can help a bit,” he said. “I can’t say I’ve changed much. Just keep battling, keep talking to the goalie coach. Nothing special, I think.”

But it has been.

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MLS Cup-winning head coach Wilfried Nancy knew it was coming and still had trouble stopping it.

Minnesota United’s high-pressing tactic was employed in the season-opening win over Austin FC two weeks ago, and it was again rolled out versus Nancy’s Columbus Crew in the Loons’ home opener last Saturday. With a week to prepare, it still posed problems for the 2023 trophy winners.

“The opposition (MNUFC) did a good job to press us, and we didn’t want to start slow, but they put a lot of pressure,” Nancy told reporters after a 1-1 draw with Minnesota. “… We could have done better, but it was because of the opposition, they pressed us really well.”

United has been working on its new front-foot tactic since the beginning of preseason in early January. The directive from new Chief Soccer Officer Khaled El-Ahmad has been implemented by interim head coach Cameron Knowles.

Knowles will lead the Loons (1-0-1) for the last time against Orlando City (0-1-1) at Inter & Co Stadium at 6:30 p.m. Saturday.

New permanent head coach Eric Ramsay takes over next week, including an introductory news conference at Allianz Field on Wednesday. Knowles, meanwhile, appears in line to take become an assistant coaching rule under Ramsay.

Knowles has shown himself in a good light during his caretaker stint. He has done so with the help of a clear weekly plan.

“As players, we crave habits and we crave consistency,” said defensive midfielder and captain Wil Trapp. “And when you have consistent ways of doing things through the week, it’s really nice for us to know what to expect.”

One day at a time

Knowles was asked by the Pioneer Press to described the weekly routine:

Monday morning is a recovery sessions for the previous game’s starters, while supplemental work is put into players who didn’t see the bulk of the match’s minutes.

Monday afternoon holds a video review session of the game — key moments, things done well and areas for improvement.

Tuesday morning is a classroom session with video focused on how the upcoming opponent plays with the ball, meaning how MNUFC will set up a plan to press them and find counter-attacking moments.

Tuesdays on the field have been the longest training sessions of each week to start the season. They work on what they just went over inside. “High volume, physical day for us,” Knowles said.

Wednesday is a new off day for first-team players.

Thursday mornings include another video session focused on how the opponent will set up out of possession, meaning how the Loons can try to exploit their opponent. The Loons then train this lesson on the field.

Friday is a refresher course on the key points for the week and an activation of players’ bodies in a lighter practice the day before the game.

“We try to layer those things throughout the week, so it’s not just one dump of information at one time,” Knowles explained. “They are getting little bites of it and just topping it up as needed throughout the week.”

Knowles explained why it has been defense-first to start each week.

“I just think the way that we want to defend and the physical toll on it,” Knowles said. “If we can get the guys recovered from the game, and we are far enough away from the next game to put that physical load into them, that’s the way we have been building up the week so far.”

Trapp has appreciated Knowles’ classroom-to-field approach.

“For me, I don’t want to say it’s coaching 101, but it’s a way that players respond and I’ve always responded to extremely well,” Trapp said. “For us that really enjoy being visual learners and be able to walk it all through, it’s perfect. I think that is a reason why the team has adapted so well because it’s super clear. Here are the moments where we can hunt the ball when we want to create those pressing moments and then we are going to go do it.”

That doesn’t mean it will be perfect in each game. After the opening 20 minutes Saturday, Columbus got its footing and created the better scoring chances. Loons goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair kept the Crew off the scoreboard until the 59th minute when Cucho Hernandez scored.

The Loons didn’t quit, bringing on five substitutes and continuing to press until Tani Oluwaseyi scored the equalizing goal in the 95th minute.

Comparison to Heath

The elephant in the (class)room is how the first team approached the week’s buildup under former manager Adrian Heath.

“I love Adrian,” Trapp continued. “Everyone has their own way of doing things, right? You are seeing the younger generation of coaches that have gone through the pro license and have done all this stuff recently, or more recently like Cam has. This is more of the model they are taking up.”

Trapp, who was with the Columbus Crew from 2013-19 and Inter Miami in 2020, said his first year with MNUFC in 2021 was the least amount of group video sessions he watched as a pro.

The Loons brought in David Handgraff as a video analyst in 2022 and the amount of video sessions increased for MNUFC into last season. Cam has laid out clear communication and responsibilities for players, while Heath was not as scripted with his counter-attacking style.

References checked

When news of Ramsay’s hire by MNUFC spread two weeks ago, Trapp received text messages from two assistant coaches he previously worked under in Miami: Anthony Pulis, a current MLS assistant at Real Salt Lake, and Brett Uttley, now the head coach of Austin FC II.

Pulis and Uttley know Ramsay. They earned their UEFA pro license with Ramsay as a sort of mentor.

“They said first and foremost as a person, incredible,” Trapp relayed. “Still trying to figure out what the style of play will be, but I think Cam is distilling that down for us anyway.

“But more importantly just the way (Ramsay) is. How driven he is, how determined he is,” Trapp added. “Everything I’ve heard, read and talked to people about is quality.”

The Loons are completing a final step in a transition from an old-school manager in Adrian Heath, 63, to a new-school approaches from Knowles, 41, and then Ramsay, who will be the youngest coach in MLS at age 32.

“It’s a total pendulum swing away from where we were,” Trapp said. “I’ve taken this stance that I’m not going to judge anything until you get your eyes on it and you can formulate your own opinions. Having those assumptions (of Ramsay) ahead of time makes us feel better, but it doesn’t really matter until you are on the field with the guy.”

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Texas regulators last week approved water rights for a new, 2,500-acre reservoir to meet the growing needs of chemical plants, refineries and other industries on the Gulf Coast. 

A draft permit issued by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality authorizes the Lavaca-Navidad River Authority (LNRA) to divert up to 31 billion gallons per year from the Lavaca River. It would go into a reservoir proposed on property Formosa Plastics owns, about two miles east of its massive Point Comfort chemical complex, where the company has quietly pursued permits to expand in recent years since its Louisiana megaproject has been stalled by legal complaints. 

The draft will undergo a period of public comment before being adopted. 

It’s the first time in 50 years the small river authority has sought additional water rights, according to general manager Patrick Brzozowski. 

“There is interest in our area to develop industrial plants,” he said. “That’s where the demand is going to come from.”

The 20-year-old fracking boom in Texas continues to fuel a downstream buildout on the coast, where pipelines deliver oil and gas to enormous facilities that refine it into chemical products or prepare it for export by sea.

Around Lavaca Bay, this mostly rural middle section of the Texas Gulf Coast lacks the great conglomerations of chemical manufacturers that ring the water at Houston and Port Arthur to the north and Corpus Christi to the south. Here, a single actor reins supreme: Formosa Plastics, a $460 billion Taiwanese company, and its 2,500-acre complex on Lavaca Bay, which turns Texas shale gas into the materials for common single-use plastics. 

The company has incurred hefty fines and complaints for years over unpermitted discharges into air and water. It currently faces steep opposition over its proposed new chemical complex in Louisiana, which has mired the project in challenges over environmental justice, climate impacts and wetlands destruction. 

Now, its prospects for expansion in Texas trouble environmental advocates. 

“Formosa got such hell from people in Louisiana stopping them that they keep it very quiet when they are trying to expand,” said Diane Wilson, a retired Gulf Coast fisherwoman who won a $50 million settlement in 2019 from Formosa over its routine dumping of plastics into Lavaca Bay over decades. “They want water for expansion.”

Formosa declined to answer questions about expansion plans or the proposed reservoir. 

“Since the Lavaca-Navidad River Authority (LNRA) applied for the water permit, we feel you should contact LNRA,” a Formosa spokesperson wrote in an email. 

Industrial water demand

According to Brzozowski, two customers account for 98 percent of water demand in the Lacava-Navidad basin, the smallest major river basin in Texas. 

One is the City of Corpus Christi, 100 miles to the southwest, where a single new plastics plant owned by ExxonMobil and the Saudi Basic Industries Corporation accounts for up to 25 percent of regional water demand (and where a 2018 city ordinance exempts industrial water users from restrictions during drought).

The other is Formosa Plastics. The two customers consume roughly equal amounts, according to the region’s latest water plan. 

The LNRA currently supplies about 28 billion gallons of water each year from its only reservoir, Lake Texana on the Navidad River, with none left to spare. Its pending water rights permits would add to its portfolio an additional 31 billion gallons per year from the neighboring Lavaca River, to be stored at the 16-billion-gallon reservoir (small by Texas standards) planned on Formosa property in Jackson County. 

Formosa would get first rights to a portion of the water, Brzozowski said, but the details haven’t been negotiated. 

Expansion plans

For Formosa, the opportunity for growth in Texas comes after legal challenges have stalled its plans for a new, $9.4 billion chemical complex in St. James Parish, Louisiana. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers revoked that project’s permit to build on wetlands in 2020, and in 2022, a state judge struck down its air pollution permits, citing concerns over environmental justice and climate. 

Seventeen days later, Formosa applied with Texas regulators for permits to build a new hexene plant at Point Comfort and expand its adjacent polyethylene plant. The two projects together were approved in September 2023 to emit about 170 tons of regulated pollutants per year. 

The company has also applied for amendments to nine of its air permits to authorize four new ground flares—large facilities used for burning off unwanted chemicals—and to sharply increase emissions limits at its existing flares. 

“Formosa has not explained why it is seeking to increase flaring limits,” said official comments filed with the TCEQ by the Environmental Integrity Project in February 2023.    

The broad collection of permit amendments would increase authorized emissions from the facility by 2,262 tons per year for regulated pollutants and 323,028 tons per year for greenhouse gases, according to those comments.

“The application very clearly, dramatically raises the limits,” said Collin Cox, the attorney who wrote the comments. “They could definitely be laying the groundwork for expansion.”

According to a report this month by the business intelligence website Offshore Technology, upcoming projects at Formosa Point Comfort include expansions at its caustic soda plant, chlorine plant, propylene plant #2, PVC plant and its vinyl chloride monomer plant. 

That follows 40 years of steady growth for Formosa at Point Comfort. According to the company’s website, it began operations at the 2,500-acre complex in 1983, then underwent major expansions in 1994, 1998, 2002 and in 2012. In 2016 it applied to add a new polyethylene plant, then in 2020 retroactively doubled the plant’s authorized emissions of volatile organic compounds after it was built. 

Formosa’s first contract with the Lavaca Navidad River Authority, in 1980, secured 1.6 billion gallons of water per year. Today Formosa holds contracts for 13.4 billion gallons of water per year. 

A notorious polluter

The facility also has a history of illegal pollution. Wilson, the fisherwoman, previously sued Formosa over its large-scale dumping of plastic chemicals into Lavaca Bay. In 2019, she won the largest settlement ever awarded in a case brought by a citizen under the Clean Water Act, $50 million. 

Diane Wilson stands across Lavaca Bay from Formosa Plastics’ Point Comfort complex on July 23, 2023.
Christopher Baddour/Inside Climate News

In the settlement, Formosa agreed not to dump any more plastic into the bay. However, it has reported 584 violations of that agreement to the TCEQ, most recently on Feb. 26, incurring $15.5 million in additional penalties. 

Formosa also regularly reports violations of its air pollution permits, most recently on Jan.  22, when an emergency shutdown caused the release of 27 chemicals, including benzene at 33 times Formosa’s permitted rate, butadiene at 70 times the permitted rate, and gaseous ethylene at 758 times the permitted rate, according to the company’s report to TCEQ. 

On Jan. 17, freezing weather prompted Formosa to release almost 250 tons of air pollution, including gaseous ethylene at 500 times its permitted rate. 

“They are still polluting, and now they are trying to expand,” Wilson said. 

The draft water rights permit will undergo a period of public comment in which affected citizens may request a hearing before an administrative law judge. If that happens, it could be several years before the project breaks ground, said Brzozowski, the river authority manager.

“We don’t have a timeline right now, we’re trying to get a permit and we don’t know how long it will take,” he said. “We do know there is future demand. They are interested in how long it’s going to take.”

Trouble in Louisiana 

In Louisiana, Formosa continues to slowly advance plans for its huge new complex. After the state judge struck down its permits in 2022, Formosa and the state of Louisiana appealed. In January, an appeals court reversed the 2022 decision, re-validating the permits. Opponents of the project have until March to raise the question to the state’s supreme court. 

Regardless of air permits, the project in Louisiana still lacks the authorization to build on wetlands since permission was revoked by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2020. Since then, the Corps has ordered an environmental impact study of the project, a meticulous, yearslong process. 

“It will likely be years before the Corps makes a decision whether to grant approval,” said Corinne Van Dalen, a senior attorney with Earthjustice in New Orleans, who has represented opponents of the project. 

The Chicago Bears are working on a deal to hire Shane Waldron as their new offensive coordinator, multiple league sources confirmed Monday morning.

Waldron has been the Seattle Seahawks offensive coordinator for the last three seasons and helped quarterback Geno Smith to a comeback season in 2022. Before that, Waldron spent four seasons with the Los Angeles Rams as the passing game coordinator, quarterbacks coach and tight ends coach.

He is well-respected inside league circles as a young, energetic coach on the rise and a strong teacher with a creative mind and — especially important to the Bears — three seasons of play-calling experience.

NFL Network first reported the Bears are planning to hire Waldron.

The Bears reportedly interviewed at least nine candidates for the opening, including San Francisco 49ers passing game coordinator Klint Kubiak, former Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator Greg Roman, former Carolina Panthers offensive coordinator Thomas Brown and former Arizona Cardinals head coach Kliff Kingsbury.

Waldron would replace Luke Getsy, whom coach Matt Eberflus fired earlier this month after two seasons at the helm of the Bears offense. In the search for Getsy’s replacement, Eberflus emphasized his desire to find a new offensive coordinator who is a “great teacher.”

“That’s important because you know he has to coach the coaches to coach the position, and I think that’s the No. 1 trait of any great coach,” Eberflus said. “You have to be able to have the innovation to really look at the players you have and be able to help enhance and put those guys in position to succeed and to get explosive (plays) and to move the ball down the field.”

Waldron would take over a Bears offense that has major decisions ahead this offseason at quarterback. General manager Ryan Poles must decide whether to use the No. 1 draft pick to select a quarterback — potentially USC’s Caleb Williams — or to stick with Justin Fields, the Bears starter for the last three seasons.

Poles said he expected to ask candidates for their plans to coach different kinds of quarterbacks.

“I love it because what are you going to do for these four different types of quarterbacks,” Poles said. “I want to hear that, and I think it’s really important to hear the versatility and adaptability in their teaching, in the way they implement a plan, scheme, adjust. It actually makes it pretty dynamic in terms of the interview process.”

Waldron called plays in 2021 for a Seahawks offense piloted by Russell Wilson. In 2022, after Wilson was traded to the Denver Broncos, the Seahawks pivoted to Smith and won nine games while earning a wild-card berth.

Smith, in his 10th NFL season, was honored as the league’s Comeback Player of the Year after throwing for 4,282 yards and 30 touchdowns. Both marks would be single-season franchise records for the Bears.

This season the Seahawks ranked 21st in total offense (322.9 yards per game) and 14th in passing (230 ypg). They averaged 21.4 points, ranked 17th. That was down from 2022, when they averaged 351.5 yards (13th) and 23.9 points (ninth).

The Seahawks staff is looking for new jobs after the organization and coach Pete Carroll parted ways after a 14-year union.

In addition to working closely with Wilson and Smith, Waldron worked with quarterback Jared Goff for three seasons with the Rams.

Waldron served as an offensive assistant with the New England Patriots (2008-09) and Washington (2016) and worked in operations with the Patriots early in his career. He also has coached in college, high school and the UFL.

Waldron and the Bears must hire assistants to coach the quarterbacks, wide receivers and running backs after the team dismissed Andrew Janocko, Tyke Tolbert and Omar Young earlier this month. Offensive line coach Chris Morgan and tight ends coach Jim Dray remain on the staff.

The Bears also are seeking a defensive coordinator, and NFL Network reported Monday they will interview Tennessee Titans defensive pass game coordinator Chris Harris. Harris played safety in the NFL for eight seasons, including two stints with the Bears, and started for the 2006 Bears team that went to the Super Bowl.

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