Three Minnesota Wild players are not expected back in 2024–2025.
It’s time to discuss who won’t be back for the upcoming season now that the Minnesota Wild have been declared out of the postseason. Players that don’t meet expectations are traded when their contracts expire in the offseason. The majority of the Wild’s roster is locked up for the upcoming seasons, but there is still room for growth.
The roster needs to be adjusted occasionally in order to improve, and the Wild will do just that this offseason. Because Bill Guerin is skilled at keeping things to himself, it might be difficult to predict exactly what he will do in his role as general manager. We’ll examine the three players in this post who probably won’t be playing for the Wild in the upcoming campaign. We’ll start with the player who is most likely to depart during the summer.
Wild’s Enduring Veteran
Alex Golgioski has played for four teams and more than 18 seasons throughout his lengthy and successful career. Before joining the Dallas Stars, he spent four seasons as a player with the Pittsburgh Penguins. After playing for the Stars for six seasons, he moved on to the Arizona Coyotes for five seasons before ending up with the Wild for the last three. It was with the Penguins that he won his only Stanley Cup in 2008–09.
Despite having participated in more than 1,000 games and scored almost 90 goals, his career total of 1,770 blocked shots is his most remarkable achievement. He’s stopped over a thousand potential goals by frequently putting his body in front of the puck, and those shots may have been goals anyhow.
But as far as his tenure with the Wild is concerned, it appears that it will conclude following this season. Goligoski recently participated in two games while Zach Bogosian was injured, but as soon as Bogosian returned, Goligoski was scratched. Then, when the Wild faced the Colorado Avalanche, he was reinstated. Despite the Wild losing Jared Spurgeon for the season and even Jonas Brodin missing time, he had been scratched the previous 24 games.
Although Goligoski has been an excellent defenseman throughout his career, the Wild cannot afford to keep him after his poor play in the previous season. They need the cap space since they have too many young defenseman that are ready to contribute. It could be time for him to think about retiring because he isn’t as quick as he once was.
Though it’s probably time given his career, no player likes to. He might attempt to sign in free agency, but given his age, it might be difficult to persuade a team to take a chance on a deal, particularly after he missed 25% of the season. The fact that Goligoski’s contract expires at the end of this season makes it easy for the Wild to move on without having to consider trying to trade him.
Johansson Must Be Decided by Wild
Not the first time, but most recently in February 2023, the Wild acquired Marcus Johansson, and things were promising. He had a fantastic start. He hasn’t played well this season, though; in 74 games, he’s only scored 28 points, which isn’t bad, but since he’s in the top six, he ought to be scoring more. This is his second chance with the Wild, and neither time has gone well for them—especially now that they have young forwards who could take his place.
Though he’s still has good skating and puck handling skills, he’s not scoring as many goals as they need him to. He does a great job getting the puck into the zone, but he stumbles when he tries to split the defense, which frequently results in the loss of the puck for the Wild. Compared to Kirill Kaprizov, who has lost the puck 70 times, he has only handed it up 28 times, but Kaprizov also has 90 points.
Now that the regular season is over, the Wild must assess every player if they hope to contend for a postseason spot the following year. Even though I like every player on the club, the Wild should find a way to part with Johansson and his $2 million in cap space. Of course, some guys are staying, but others ought to be cut. The difficult aspect is that they would need to convince him to forego the no-trade clause in his contract.
Wild’s Goalie Predicament
Over the past month, the Wild’s goaltender position has taken on a lot of intrigue. At first, it was thought that Marc-André Fleury would go for another team or retire after this season. Recently, though, he declared that if Minnesota is the only team he wants to play for one more season, he will retire. n the waiver wire, and even though I love every player on the squad, the Wild should try to find a way to part with Johansson and his $2 million in contract space. The difficult aspect is that they would need to convince him to forego the no-trade clause in his contract.
That throws a monkey wrench into the strategy of casting Jesper Wallstedt and Filip Gustavsson together for the upcoming season. They won’t keep Wallstedt in the minor leagues if he’s ready to play; they want him in the NHL, but they can’t have three goalies. Thus, the question is: Will the Wild help Fleury retire or keep him for a further year and team him with Wallstedt, putting Gustavsson up for trade?
Either way, it appears that the Wild will lose one goalkeeper, and the more I discuss this with people, the more likely it is that it will be Gustavsson. At first, I thought pairing Wallstedt and Gustavsson would be ideal, but after speaking with some acquaintances, one of them mentioned that it might end up being more of a competition between the two since Wallstedt is expected to be the next best candidate, leaving Gustavsson as a backup—which is probably not what he wants. Thus, that might incite some hostility.
But if Fleury is only with the Wild for one more season, what will the team do after that? If Wallstedt decides to trade Gustavsson, they will need a reliable second partner. There might still be a plan in the works because they recently signed goaltender Samuel Hlavaj to an entry-level contract that runs through the 2019–20 season. We’ll have to watch and find out. Either way, if the goal is to bring up Wallstedt, Fleury or Gustavsson will be gone before the next season.
Wildly Reliability
While Kaprizov, Matt Boldy, Joel Eriksson Ek, Jared Spurgeon, and Jonas Brodin—the core players of the Wild—have contracts in place, it will be intriguing to see where the other players end up. Their players can be relocated if necessary, although the majority are bound by contracts. They need to make some changes before the upcoming season if they wish to have greater success after the sad conclusion to this one. It will be intriguing to watch Guerin’s activities during the offseason.