The Minnesota Wild are one of only three teams in the NHL that have qualified for the playoffs in each of the past six seasons, yet they haven’t made it out of the second round during that stretch and have been eliminated in the first round three years running.
Team owner Craig Leipold, one day after parting ways with general manager Chuck Fletcher, sent a letter to Wild season ticket holders to address where the team goes from here.
“I’m not looking for a rebuild,” Leipold wrote, less than a week after his team was embarrassed and eliminated by the Winnipeg Jets in a five-game opening-round series. “I’m not patient enough for that and you should not be either.”
It’s going to be an interesting off-season for the Wild considering nearly the entire current roster is under contract through next season with the only notable pending unrestricted free agent being 41-year-old Matt Cullen.
The Wild have plenty going for them. A quality blue line featuring Ryan Suter, Jared Spurgeon, Jonas Brodin and Mathew Dumba; a solid core up front led by Eric Staal, Mikael Granlund, Zach Parise, Mikko Koivu, Jason Zucker and Nino Niederreiter; a viable starting netminder in Devan Dubnyk, plus a rising group of high-ceiling youngsters like Joel Eriksson Ek and Jordan Greenway.
“Our situation does not require tearing things down and starting over,” Leipold added. “We’re not far from being the team we all believe can deliver a Stanley Cup. As I have said in the past, I’ll continue to give the necessary resources to our new GM, resources intended to remake the Wild from a ‘good’ playoff contender to a ‘great’ Stanley Cup championship contender.”
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