Defensemen: Minnesota's defense was horrible last year. In terms of goals given up, they were tied for the 15th lowest at 226 goals, but the bigger problem was that they didn't contribute to the offense -as a unit they scored fewer than 20 goals. The team had a few trades during the season involving their defense. In February, they traded Marek Zidlicky to New Jersey. Zidlicky made it clear he wanted a trade because he felt he wasn't being used in a constructive manner -to put it lightly. Minnesota also traded longtime Wild defenseman Nick Schultz to Edmonton for Minnesota born-and-raised Tommy Gilbert. It seemed a win-win trade, because Minnesota gained a bit more offense, while Edmonton gained a bit more defensive skill. Finally, Minnesota traded Greg Zanon to Boston for Steven Kampfer. The Wild weren't going to re-sign Zanon anyway, so they managed to get a young and more offensively skilled forward in return. Of those that were on the roster for most of the year, Stoner was solid with his physical and relatively strong defensive play. Again, however, he was fighting injuries for a portion of the season. Minnesota has re-signed him for an additional two years. Marco Scandella has yet to live up to his promise. He really struggled with his defensive game and was, at times, a real liability on the blueline. In fact, in a decisive move, he was sent to Houston for a while to reacquire some focus. Jared Spurgeon continued to improve. His offensive skill continued to scintillate given his youth and he also continued to show few liabilities in his defensive coverage. Finally, two other defensemen bear comment. Nate Prosser was given a two year one-way contract because of his performance to that point. He was really quite good defensively and actually was given just a bit of powerplay time. However, like almost the entire roster, as the year passed, his performance began to slide. He likely is only a third pairing defenseman. Justin Falk had a few moments in which he was solid defensively, but -more frequently- he was frustrating for his unwillingness to use his 6'5" size to his advantage. If only Minnesota could take Spurgeon's brain and transplant it into Falk... Given that isn't possible, I think Falk will not be in Minnesota next year and will either be picked up via waivers or moved in a trade.
Goalies: Backstrom is solid as long as his
performance in shootouts is not a consideration. If a team is in the
playoffs, that's fine, but MN has lost too many points because of his
very poor performance post-overtime. He has one more year left at $6
million and will be gone after next season. Josh Harding has an
expiring contract and will enter free agency looking for a starting
role. He was at times spectacular, while at other times porous which
was best illustrated by his January 31 game against Nashville in which
he gave up four goals in the third period which lead to a 5-4 loss. Matt Hackett seems to be the next quality goalie that Minnesota will have in the NHL. He played in 12 games and only won three and lost six but his save percentage was .922 and his Goals Against Average was 2.37 -both very good numbers. A number of his starts were while the team, as a whole, was playing very poorly.
This site discusses everything MN Wild and follows the development of their prospects. The real value of the site aren't my blog entries as much as the embedded statistics on MN Wild prospects that can be reached via the links on the right of the page. The site uses statistics from eliteprospects.com. Prospects are listed in order of their draft class. Click on the right of this page to view current and past statistics for each draft class. Visit often!
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