Going with what they've got: It's time for young guns to step up
It’s time for the Wild to take a different approach this offseason.
The last three summers, the Wild front office has taken to the free-agent market to bolster its lineup, and although the pickups of Zach Parise, Ryan Suter, Jason Pominville, Matt Cooke, and Thomas Vanek have improved the quality of the team tenfold, it’s time for some of the younger guys to step up into bigger roles next season given the team’s current shortage of cap space.
The upside for the Wild?
They have proven to possess a handful of young players that have shown a lot of promise over the last couple of seasons, and guys like Nino Niederreiter and Jason Zucker who are central to the team’s young core, have shown that they are capable of being the driving forces behind this Wild youth movement.
So how does head coach Mike Yeo ease these young up-and-comers into bigger roles on a team filled with proven veterans?
It starts with giving them more opportunities, of course. But in order to maintain certain levels of respect throughout the team in past seasons, Yeo has typically deferred to his veteran players in big situations and power play opportunities, leaving Zucker (23), Niederreiter (22), and Dumba (20) left to watch; but the waves of change are coming.
“You look at Jason Zucker and what he accomplished this year” said Yeo in a recent interview with Chad Graff of the Pioneer Press, “If he continues to do that then he will earn more [opportunities]…Nino’s earned more, and that’s what we need these guys to continue doing.”
That is indeed what they need.
Next year, the Wild roster isn’t expected to look much different than it did this year, and if the team goes on to re-sign both Devan Dubnyk and Mikael Granlund (both of which are expected), that will effectively put the Wild right at this year’s salary cap number ($69M) and take them virtually out of the running to make any additional signings this offseason.
But these young core players have a lot of growing to do, “None of them have hit their prime or hit their peak” Wild GM Chuck Fletcher told Graff, “So that’s where the growth is going to come and we’ll see what other opportunities are out there.”
Maybe a little bit of patience is all they need, maybe that’s what they’ve been missing.
