Reviewing Victor Rask’s First Full Season with Minnesota Wild

Primarily a Cap Move; Some Value?

Just a reminder that this series of articles covering each Minnesota Wild players’ performance will take into account each player’s contract, offensive production, and overall play using analytics and our perceptions to determine each player’s impact and value to the Wild this season.

Starting from the worst, each article will work its way up until the last article in the series which features the player who, in our eyes, had the best regular season.

#20 – Victor Rask

"Aaron: C+Brandon: DLake: C"

Victor Rask was acquired in the trade that sent Nino Niederreiter to the Carolina Hurricanes. For part of the season, Victor Rask and Ryan Donato were both in and out of the lineup as they both were victim to the Wild’s depth chart.

Surprisingly enough, Rask was a decently productive NHL player during his stint in Carolina. The cinderella story in all of this would be Rask coming to Minnesota, and his whole game improving with the change of scenery which unexpectedly turns him into the quality and productive second-line center, but unfortunately, this was not the case.

Victor Rask had a whopping 5 goals, 8 assists for 13 points in 43 games. All kidding aside, Rask actually didn’t have that bad of a season, while he was virtually unproductive in terms of goal scoring and points production, his underlying numbers were decent.

His underlying numbers are average among the Wild — 13th in GF/60 (Goals For Per 60), 5th in GA/60 (Goals Against Per 60), 11th in xGF/60 (Expected Goals For Per 60), 14th in xGA/60 (Expected Goals Against Per 60), 12th in CF/60 (Corsi For Per 60) and 9th in CA/60 (Corsi Against Per 60).

Rask had a decent season. Obviously, it would be desired for him to pitch in offensively, but by no means would I say he had a terrible season.

With that being said, he is not worth 4 million and is the best candidate to be bought-out this offseason unless the Wild can find a trade partner which is highly unlikely.

Gone Puck Wild Site Expert Lake Martin on Rask:

"“Rask was widely unimpressive but managed to pick up some huge goals”."

Highlight Of The Year:

Nearly every goal Victor Rask scored this season was a big-game goal which is quite ironic.

That was his first goal of the season that gave the Wild the goal ahead goal after not being able to get anything past Craig Anderson.

More from Gone Puck Wild

• Defenseman Matt Dumba signs one-year contract with Arizona
• Minnesota Wild reach agreement with Brandon Duhaime on one-year contract
• Minnesota Wild receive mixed grades for picks in NHL Entry Draft
• Minnesota Wild draft heavy on centers and home-state selections
• Minnesota Wild open regular season at home against Stanley Cup Finalist

Rask also had a go-ahead goal against the Lightning, go-ahead goal against the Bruins, go-ahead goal against the Avalanche, game-tying goal against the Ducks.

Every Rask goal was either a game-tying goal or a go-ahead goal.

If you noticed, Rask has no emotion or any kind of celly after any goal, which could mean this is a discouraged hockey player trying his best to produce.

It may feel repetitive, but I feel I need to drive the point home. His underlying numbers are decent, one would have to question whether Rask, who is only 27, maybe has the potential to revamp his career after a couple of disappointing seasons.

I am not sure of Rask’s role with the Wild for next season, but what a story it would be to see him get anywhere close to roughly 15 goals, in which he had averaged his first four seasons as a Hurricane.

All Stats Via Evolving Hockey, NHL.com, & Hockey Reference