With Darcy Kuemper set to be a UFA next offseason the assumption seems to be that this season will be his last with the Wild. A closer look reveals that if Kuemper doesn’t up his play the market may not be right for him to leave the Wild.
At the start of the 2014-15 season things were looking great for Darcy Kuemper to take control of the Minnesota Wild goaltending duties for years to come. After all here was a young netminder with some success in the playoffs who was just waiting for the time to get his shot to play regularly. The stars had aligned with injury to Josh Harding and the decline of Niklas Backstrom, he got the nod to start the season and had a solid start going 6-2 in his first eight games.
After that we all know that the season just seemed to get away from the young man from Saskatchewan. Kuemper from November 4th to January 6th would post a record of 7-10-2 with a save percentage of 0.836. It just seemed like Kuemper lacked the confidence to hold down the net full-time for the Wild, so they acquired Devan Dubnyk from Arizona and the starting job has been his ever since.
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Fast forward to this offseason we find that Kuemper is still with the team and clearly in the back-up role. He had a better season last season, but still only was able to go 6-7-5 with a save percentage of .915 and a GAA of 2.43 in 21 games played. The Wild did well to shore him up for another season at the back-up spot, and even tried to shop him in the trade market. GM Chuck Fletcher explained “If there’s a deal that makes sense for us and allows him to get a better opportunity, I think that would be good for both of us.” We can only assume that better opprotunity for Kuemper was a move to a team to possibly be a starter.
As we know no trade has yet to materialize and most likely will given the Wild’s goaltending depth. Also the question of how other teams view Kuemper is important, as they might be looking at the numbers and come to the conclusion that he’s not ready to be a starter.
This is really a fair assumption and one that Kuemper will have to play better this season to change. With Dubnyk likely to get a lot of starts again this season, barring an injury, Kuemper will have to make the most of the playing time he is given to prove he’s worth of starting in the NHL. Even still the UFA market could simply not be right to make him a starter and all that might be there for him is to back-up.
Kuemper can certainly negotiate a contract number close to his current deal with the Wild, but unless his play improves dramatically, the question becomes does he deserve more than $1.55 million as a back-up? Not really considering right now the highest paid true back-up goaltender is Chad Johnson of Calgary who is carrying a cap hit of $1.7 million. So essentially for Kuemper to make significantly more than what he makes now, he needs to jump to being a starter.
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So why mention all this? It’s to show that even though Kuemper will be an UFA next offseason, unless something changes he’s going to be looking for a back-up job and he’s more than likely going to be making the same amount of salary. Furthermore, that means he could still find himself back with the Wild. If the Wild can still fit in his current salary or a slight raise into their salary cap plans next season, there’s a chance he’ll be back with the Wild because the market will not be there for him to make any more money as a back-up.
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Still anything can happen over the course of the season. If Kuemper wants to make the jump to being a starter he’ll need to start playing like it. And if the Wild want to deal him to another team, they might need him to start playing better too. One thing is for certain he’s gone just about as far as he can go as a back-up.