The Minnesota Wild have forged into the top Wild Card position in the Western Conference standings as the Olympic break comes to the NHL.
Yet there is a sense that general manager Chuck Fletcher will try to upgrade their roster once the freeze ends on Feb. 24 and the NHL trade deadline of March 5 approaches. In conversation with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, he labelled three major areas - scoring, defense and goaltending - that could perhaps see an improvement in the weeks ahead.
It’s been an interesting season in the Minnesota crease. The Wild have used three goalies - Josh Harding, Darcy Kuemper and Niklas Backstrom - this season. Harding was having a sensational season, with a 18-7-3 record, 1.65 goals-against average and .933 save percentage, but hasn’t played since Dec. 31 because of illness.
There seems to be no indication of when Harding, who undergoes treatment for multiple sclerosis, will return, saying last month: “But there are some things that are out of my control, and I thought that we did everything in our control to get back to where we are right now.”
Kuemper has been good, with an 8-3-2 record, including three wins in his last five starts.
“We’re a team still in the bottom six offensively, yet over the last month and a half, we’re averaging three goals a game. So you want to be a little careful there and decide if you need to really go out and get scoring,” Fletcher told the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
“I like the way we defend and we have decent depth, but you could always use another defenseman. We have to figure out our goaltending situation, but we like our depth there, too. So throughout our lineup, we’ve had better depth, which is why we’ve been able to overcome all our injuries.