It’s pretty amazing how quickly a great regular season can go down the tubes. The Minnesota Wild were one of the best teams in hockey for most of this season. Then came late-season struggles and a first-round playoff loss at the hands of the St. Louis Blues.
Just like that, it’s back to the drawing board for GM Chuck Fletcher and the Wild.
Here’s a look at what’s on the offseason docket:
1. Trade a defenseman
The Wild gave up a lot of draft picks at the trade deadline to land Martin Hanzal in a deal with the Coyotes, and Fletcher would be smart to get some of those back along with other cheap, young players before the expansion draft by dealing a defenseman rather than losing one to Vegas for nothing.
Ryan Suter has a no-move clause. He’s not going anywhere anyways. Jared Spurgeon should also be protected. After that, you still have three defensemen in Matt Dumba, Jonas Brodin and Marco Scandella with trade value. The Wild won’t be able to keep them all. The ideal scenario would be a young center in return, but that deal may not exist in the short window between the end of the season and the expansion draft, so the Wild will have to lean toward the best one available.
2. Contract extension for Mikael Granlund
Granlund was one of two Wild forwards to average more than 20 minutes of ice time per game in the playoffs, heading into Game 5. The pending restricted free agent is an important part of the Wild's offense, and is coming off a career season in which he scored 26 goals to go with 69 points, both well above career averages. He blossomed under Bruce Boudreau, and is going to get a serious increase from the $3 million he earned this season.
The question is how much?
He has an inflated shooting percentage at 14.7 percent, well above his career average of 9.9 percent. It might be advantageous to do another short deal to make sure last season wasn’t a fluke, but that would come with a higher cap hit and may not fit the Minnesota cap structure. The other wild card is that Nino Niederreiter also needs a new deal, so cap space will be at a premium.
3. Explore ways out of Jason Pominville's deal
OK, this might be an unreasonable request, but this is the year of the expansion draft, in which hope springs eternal. Vegas is willing to take a bad contract or two if the return is right. Maybe Fletcher can work some magic, trade one of his defensemen for a nice haul, then use some of those assets to convince George McPhee to take Pominville in the expansion draft.
The issue? Pominville’s no-movement clause requires him to be protected, so he’d have to waive that in this (admittedly) far-fetched scenario.
A buyout might be a more realistic option, but the Wild just bought out Thomas Vanek; at some point, this isn’t an avenue an owner wants to keep utilizing.