Minnesota Wild: What Does The Opening Night Line-Up Look Like?
By Luke Ryan
Picking the make-up of the Minnesota Wild defense on opening night is a little more complicated, especially given there is an abundance of decent depth options.
However, recent roster cuts make it a lot clearer to determine who is likely to slot in where on the blue-line.
The most obvious is the Minnesota Wild’s top pairing of Ryan Suter and Matt Dumba. This pair didn’t spend a great deal for time partnering each other last season but project to be an incredibly solid duo.
They combined for 101 points last campaign, albeit on separate pairings for the most part; the big question is whether that production is limited by their partnership or whether they both excel and score at the same rate irregardless.
Moving down to the second pairing, you’ll find the duo of Jared Spurgeon and Jonas Brodin. We’ve spoken about both players.
In the case of Spurgeon, it was to point out how underrated he is for the work he puts in on defense, whilst Brodin was someone we suggested is a prime candidate to be traded.
Either way, it’s an expectation that come opening night, these two will be making up a second pairing, that although it won’t strike fear into the opposition, it will be more than able to hold it’s own.
Finally, we forsee the third pairing being made up of summer signing Greg Pateryn and Nick Seeler.
Between the pair of them, they’ve done enough to see off competition from the likes of Ryan Murphy, who hopefully clears waivers, Matt Bartkowski and Carson Soucy.
The expectation is that Nate Prosser warms a seat in the press-box for the time being. Gustav Olofsson, meanwhile, looks set to start the season with the big club albeit on injured reserve.
There are questions when he recovers as to whether Prosser or himself did enough in pre-season to maintain the extra spot. The defensive depth in the Minnesota Wild organisation screams out for a trade to be made in order to free up some spots.