Minnesota Wild: Backup Goaltender Options – Part One

Heading into the new season, it’s clear that Devan Dubnyk is the first-choice goaltender for the Minnesota Wild. However, looking past him it’s not so clear who the backup goaltender will pan out to be.

Looking at the options available to the Minnesota Wild, there’s two clear favorites to fill the role and a couple of possible wildcards, depending on what direction the franchise wishes to take.

In this series of articles, I’ll assess the internal options and a couple of outside options that are potentially available.

The smart money would be on Alex Stalock to be penciled in as the number two. He clearly sits in that spot in terms of the Minnesota Wild depth chart and proved reasonably consistent last year, offering a 2.85 goals against average (GAA) and a .910 save percentage across 28 games.

For a backup to be able to slot in for just under a third of the teams’ games and deliver that level of consistency is ideal in the modern NHL.

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A known quantity that doesn’t seem prone to streakiness, as demonstrated by the fact he’s averaged around the same level of performance across three seasons and two teams, seems like a minimum risk option.

I’d like to see Alex Stalock back on the bench for the Minnesota Wild; he is the perfect option to prevent Devan Dubnyk from having to face too many pucks. He has proven, both in Minnesota and San Jose that he is at least backup quality at the NHL level and can suitably hold his own on any given night.

He also showed some ability to play the puck when given the chance last season. This is a skill that is hugely under-appreciated as it allows the offensive break-outs not to be fully reliant upon his defense playing the puck out of their zone.

Add in that he is born and bred in Minnesota on a very cheap contract and suddenly he becomes an even more appealing candidate; nothing like having a hometown guy to root for!

My biggest gripe is that he’s a bit of a swimmer, he often seems to scramble around the crease and has a tendency to hurl his limbs around trying anything to deflect the puck.

Maybe this is a personal bias as the style clearly works, looking at his save percentage; I just preference a slightly less frenetic approach to keeping the puck out of the net.

I’d probably rate Stalock as the most likely to be backup goaltender this season, but who knows. There’s still a few more options out there, as I’ll discuss in Part Two.