Iowa Wild Signs Benjamin Dieude-Fauvel

The Iowa Wild announced Sunday that they have signed defenseman Benjamin Dieude-Fauvel to a professional tryout (PTO).

Dieude-Fauvel spent all of last season and this season with the Wild’s ECHL affiliate the Quad City Mallards (CHL last year, ECHL this year). In 65 games for the Mallards last year he scored 11 goals and 29 assists. Through 22 games this season he has four goals and three assists. He sorts some good size at 6-foot-2 220 pounds and will be making his AHL debut Sunday night. He’s spent the last six seasons of his career playing in North America after starting his career playing professionally in his native France.

Part of the call-up/PTO is likely that the Minnesota Wild are going to be without Keith Ballard for an extended period and Jared Spurgeon was sidelined yesterday with illness. While Spurgeon’s absence won’t be long-term, it’s expected that Minnesota will need to keep one of Iowa’s defensemen up in the NHL long-term. The team currently has Justin Falk, Christian Folin, and Nate Prosser up as parts of the third pairing. Stu Bickel also played defense in Saturday’s game against the Arizona Coyotes. (I wrote a bit about the defensive depth issues for the Wild on Friday.)

Dieude-Fauvel is expected to join the team immediately and, as the above tweet points out, join the Iowa Wild on Sunday as they take on the Adirondack Flames in Des Moines.

Photo by Les Stockton.