3 Minnesota Wild Who Won’t Be Back Next Season

The Minnesota Wild are an anomaly as they have played great this season, especially as of late, while being banged up and without much star power. The depth has stepped up throughout the lineup, but with minimal cap space to work with for the next two years and Matt Boldy starting a large extension, the Wild will have to make some changes in order to stay cap compliant. That means players will be moving on in the offseason.

Matt Dumba

Matt Dumba is an easy candidate here as he was already rumoured to have been being shopped at the deadline to free up space for the Wild to make a larger addition. The team’s defence is an area where they don’t have to worry about because of the strong play and depth. They currently have eight NHL-calibre defencemen and will be more than okay if Dumba, who is on a decline, leaves.

After Dumba put up a 50-point season in 2017-18, it has only been downhill from there in terms of production and health. His 70 games this season are the most he’s played in a season in the past five years and he’s maxed out at 27 points. To this point, he has just four goals and 13 points and is an unrestricted free agent (UFA) at the end of the season. The Wild will have no issues filling that hole in their lineup and they will have $6 million freed up.

John Klingberg

The Wild made a couple of trade deadline acquisitions and John Klingberg was one of them. He was a cheap addition to provide them with some more scoring from the back-end, and it still remains to be seen if it’ll pay off fully as he has a goal and four points in nine games and is currently injured.

Related: 3 Avalanche Who Won’t Be Back Next Season

Klingberg will once again be looking for a decent sized payday, even after this down season for his standards. The Wild don’t have the cap space to be able to sign him long-term, especially when they’ll be allotting even more cap to the buyouts of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter for the next two seasons and have a much cheaper player in Calen Addison who will improve, get more opportunities, and be able to provide more offence.

Sam Steel

A rumour that Sam Steel won’t be returning to the Wild next season has been making the rounds as he has been a healthy scratch as of late after spending time on the top line earlier in the season. In his fifth season in the NHL, the 25-year-old has already put up his most goals (8) and points (25) in a season.

Though the Wild took a chance on him on a one-year deal and it has worked out for them considering his price tag, Steel isn’t a top-six player and was only playing at the top of the lineup because the Wild had no other options. Though the team may consider bringing him back, they have other options like Marco Rossi that they hope can get into a full-time role with the team next season. Steel would only help negate that opportunity for the young centerman. Other teams may also be intrigued by the uptick in performance by Steel and take a chance on him like Minnesota did.