Minnesota Wild: Roster Hopefuls Need to Shine Tonight

Tonight’s contest in Colorado could prove to be the most important game this preseason to forming the final Minnesota Wild roster.  Already this morning the signals from Head Coach Bruce Boudreau is that this game will be crucial to who earns the open roster spots of the Wild.

There’s not much time left.  Many of the remaining roster hopeful forwards for the Minnesota Wild have got to know that their time to make a big move is now.  Tonight the Wild play what will be the first of their two remaining preseason games.  The lineup that is traveling to Colorado is mostly made up of these roster hopeful players, so they’ll get their opportunity to log some minutes.

This game looks to be very crucial for these players.   The final game back in Minnesota on Saturday will most likely be populated with more of the current roster players who will be looking to get a bit of game time in ahead of the season opener.  Additionally, the roster is most likely to be trimmed at again after the game in Colorado and you’ll most likely see one of the bigger roster hopeful forwards be trimmed.

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Right now the core group of roster hopeful forwards who still have a chance to make the team include Joel Eriksson-Ek, Alex Tuch, Christoph Bertschy, Zac Dalpe, Tyler Graovac, and Ryan Carter.  They seem to collectively to have some more work to do, as Michael Russo reported after the loss to the Jets that Bruce Boudreau might be wanting this group to step up just a bit.

This morning Boudreau doubled down his message to the roster hopefuls by saying “Show me what you’ve got and put your best foot forward tonight.”

Eriksson-Ek seems to be leading this pack right now as far as performance, and could really make a statement if he notches a point or two tonight.  He had lots of flashes of great skating and hustle before Sunday’s game, but had been unable to translate that to a point.  Then he remedied that with what was the play of the game by making a strong offensive zone steal and pass to setup Zucker’s goal in the third period.  The buzz is there for him he just needs one more big moment to put him squarely in the driver’s seat.

Alex Tuch really needs a point and preferably a goal tonight if he wants to make the roster.  He may have had good hustle and shown strong instincts in all the games he’s played, but has yet to tally a point.  Much like Eriksson-Ek before Sunday’s game Tuch still has that question mark because he has not translated that hard work to results.

Tyler Graovac didn’t play in Sunday’s game due to the flu, but has some questions that have arose in the three other games.  He recorded an assist in the first Colorado game, but yet was thought to have struggled the next game in Winnipeg.  He was given a dedicated film session with assistant coach John Anderson, to improve on some issues suggesting that the coaching staff think he needs some tweaks.

So tonight needs to be a big one for Graovac and he even knows it saying the game was about “Getting back to my game.  I’m a big centerman; I need to use my size…and stay calm in the mind.”

As for Dalpe and Bertschy they’ve both been relatively low on the praise/recognition totem pole.  Neither player has recorded a point, and it seems that potential and further evaluation has been the only reason they are still on the camp roster at this point.

Then finally there’s Ryan Carter.  As a player on a tryout Carter has had to be better than he’s played.  Perhaps the strongest criticism of a player by Boudreau this preseason was levied on Carter.  Michael Russo explained that Boudreau said in an underwhelmed tone of Carter that “He works hard,” and that “I’m not going to build him up when I don’t think he deserves to be built up. I’m not going to put him down because you know what you get from him. He’s a 10-year vet.”

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Boudreau is spot on here.  Carter is not really stepping up and showing the team without a doubt that he deserves to be on the roster.  With no points and very little tangible results, he’s behind these other roster hopeful forwards.  And what makes this equation more complicated now is that he will not play in tonight’s game because of a minor injury.  The only hope at this point for Carter is that is veteran presence is valued over the other young candidates, and that the other young candidates flounder enough in the next two tilts to where they need the less risky Carter.

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So if you were planning on sitting this game out tonight and paying attention to something else, you might want to reconsider.  The game will be on KFAN so tune in and at least put it in the background, because tonight is the most important preseason game from a roster perspective.  My expectation is that it’ll be a hard one as the Avs are largely playing their A teamers, but if one of these players plays well against that group they’ll certainly have earned the right to be on the roster.