Minnesota Wild: What Should The Off-Season Look Like?

This is likely an off-season that the Minnesota Wild will want to forget about and move on from.

A lot of fans in The State Of Hockey and the hockey universe as a whole realized that it didn’t take much math to see that the Wild weren’t going to be able to keep around superstar Kevin Fiala beyond this season.

Last week, Minnesota made their first big move of the off-season, and likely their only big move, by moving the rights to the pending restricted free agent to the LA Kings in exchange for the Kings’ own 1st round pick in this year’s draft and defensive prospect Brock Faber.

The brief summary of this is that the Wild weren’t able to afford Fiala’s services anymore and by trading him, they get a 1st round pick, which will open up Director of Scouting Judd Brackett’s eyes more.

They also get Minnesota Golden Gophers defenseman Brock Faber who of which is really excited to have a chance to play for his hometown Wild in the years to come.

What Should The Off-Season Look Like for the Wild?

We all have to think, what is next for the Wild?  The draft is this coming week, and the Wild currently own two 1st round picks now thanks to the Fiala trade.

As mentioned above, Judd Brackett will have another pick to utilize to the full extent and his history of drafting players speaks for itself.

Since Brackett took over before the 2020 NHL draft, the players he’s selected in the 1st round are Marco Rossi, Jesper Wallstedt and Carson Lambos, and he’s about to add two more to the mix.

These are important, as first-round players have such a high value and can play on cheap entry-level deals, which is something that is critical to the already cap-strapped Wild.

After the draft, we move on to free agency, in which it’s easy to predict that the Wild won’t be signing any big-named players due to their cap situation. There are few players whose rights are still owned by Minnesota that they should be looking at.

Marc-Andre Fleury is the most interesting one because of his lackluster playoff performance but hey, he’s still a really good goalie and even though he is at the end of his career, he might still have one more in the tank. That is something the team will hope he can do for them.

It seems like the Wild have been in touch with Fleury and are still waiting for an answer from him, but if he chooses to continue his career, Minnesota should be making an offer.

The Wild made a move at the trade deadline to pick up defenseman Jacob Middleton from the San Jose Sharks, and when he came to Minnesota, he was immediately paired with Jared Spurgeon.

From there he showed the Wild he could play anywhere in the defense core and that’s super valuable to have. While waiting for Fleury, re-signing Middleton should be a top priority for Bill Guerin.

I do fully anticipate Minnesota letting Nick Bjugstad, Nic Deslauriers and Jordie Benn walk to free agency, as they will probably find better deals somewhere else than what the Wild can offer them financially.