Minnesota Wild defenceman Matt Dumba will be a healthy scratch on Thursday night versus the Carolina Hurricanes, the team announced.
Wild head coach Dean Evanson explained that it was not injury-related, and was strictly a hockey decision.
“We had a real good meeting,” Evanson told reporters. “He knows why he’s sitting out tonight.”
Dumba was surprised to be a scratch, but reiterated that “it’s an organization decision.”
“(I have) never not tried my hardest. Mistakes happen and I was pumped we got two points there,” Dumba said of the Wild’s recent game against the Washington Capitals. “We’re all not going to have it night to night. I guess maybe it wasn’t exactly one of my strong nights.
“I thought since the little lapse at the start of the year, I thought my game’s been really consistent.”
As the NHL’s trade deadline approaches, there has been speculation that Dumba is a player that could be dealt.
Reporters asked Dumba, an unrestricted free agent at season’s end, about dealing with the rumours surrounding his future.
“I try not to listen to anything. Still, it gets back to you one way or another,” he said. “We all have a vision of how our future’s gonna look. Never seems to go exactly that course. Right now, yeah, there’s ups and downs of it. Gonna work hard and try to get this in the direction I want it to go.”
The 28-year-old has four goals and eight assists in 43 games for the Wild this season.
