Quote:
Originally Posted by PeteMoss
Also I blame the Wild GM for not finding a real goalie at the trade deadline.
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I don't.
Kuemper was playing great, and the Wild has two other goalies on 1-way deals already (and both "hurt"). You need to give Kuemper some carrot, and why in the world would you give up assets with that many goalies already on the books?
Now, Kuemper started not playing great soon thereafter, and then went and sustained a concussion, in a practice, no less.
And if you wanted to argue that Fletcher took too much risk by going into the season with a still-injured Backstrom (to whom he gave a new contract last summer, to boot) and a MS-stricken Harding as his 1st and 2nd options in goal, I probably wouldn't put up too much of a fuss.
It's going to be a very interesting summer in Wild land, vis-a-vis goalies. I can't see Fletcher telling Kuemper he has to go to Iowa in October. Not when he's played this well overall. But Bax is on a 35 year old contract, that carries a $3.416M cap hit for the next TWO seasons beyond this one (that hurts). They cannot compliance buyout Bax as he was signed after the new CBA was in place.
Harding has one more year at $1.9M cap hit. I also can't see Fletcher telling Harding to take a hike - just for the optics and the humanity. But maybe Harding realizes that he simply cannot predict or control when he will be unavailable to the team. Which is heartbreaking, particularly after he just played the best he's ever played in his (relatively brief, NHL games-wise) career. The best thing for the team would be Harding retiring, but I'm sure not going to tell him that.
Bryz did great down the stretch, then while he wasn't great, was hardly the only reason the Wild went down 0-2 in this series. And he bought Kuemper enough time to get back to health and his A-game, evidently.