Minnesota Wild: Choices to Fill The Remaining Roster Spots
The Minnesota Wild had an excellent development camp and it looks like the future is bright. With possible openings in the 23-man roster heading into next season could we see one of the young standouts from camp with the Minnesota full-time in 2016-17?
The Minnesota Wild got a great glimpse on what looks like a bright future during their annual summer development camp. From the beginning the Wild management knew that they were dealing with one of the most talented groups to play on the Xcel ice during the summer in a long time. While we all tried to keep out expectations low, you couldn’t help but wonder when the top prospects from camp could be up a playing for the big club in Minnesota.
Next season will be a challenge from a depth standpoint. Right now with $5.3 million in cap space and that number set to reduce further after Matt Dumba finally signs, the Wild will not have a lot of cap space left. Additionally, the Wild currently have 18 of 23 NHL roster spots filled and will look to some of their prospect pool to possibly fill out their depth spots.
Dumba will take one spot, Jordan Schroeder still can take a slot, and you can almost count on Tyler Graovac to take another one. That takes the Wild to 21 spots covered so who could be placed into the other two spots? It might seem like an easy question because you’d just pick the most talented player, but whoever fills out the depth slots will not get a lot of playing time so it does not behoove the Wild to use a player that is still developing.
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The players to fill those depth slots will most likely have to be someone who has played at the AHL level for a season or two. The issue with the Wild though is that the pool to choose from in Iowa is so thin that really only leaves Zack Mitchell, Grayson Downing, or Christoph Bertschy as viable candidates in-house to fill out the Wild’s forward depth.
Mitchell was Iowa’s leading scorer last year and looks to be the best option right now, but he has no NHL experience. The only player of that group of three with NHL experience is Bertschy for three games last season with no points. But with the need for the younger players to get more playing time, this group of players could find themselves making the team out of training camp even though they may not be most talented players available.
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The young prospect forwards like Tuch, Anas, or Eriksson-Ek have shown a lot of promise, but they need to get playing time to develop rather than watch games from the press box. They might have moments of call-up to play a few games here and there, but as far as making the roster full-time that looks unlikely right now. The only way one of these prospect players will make the team will be because they will have earned a full-time lineup spot, not just a roster spot.
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Sure there’s still time and a small amount of money for the Wild to add some depth forwards via a trade or free-agency to the roster, but time is running out and cap space is tight if Fletcher wants to keep $2-3 million in reserve. So look for players like Mitchell, Downing, or Bertschy compete for the depth spots in camp. Sure we want to see Tuch, Anas, or Eriksson-Ek playing full-time in Minnesota soon, but it just seems that will have to wait till at least next season.