Devan Dubnyk has turned out to be a huge acquisition for the Wild. (USATSI)
Devan Dubnyk has turned out to be a huge acquisition for the Wild. (USATSI)

Minnesota Wild general manager Chuck Fletcher may have thrown his struggling hockey club a life preserver when he traded for Arizona Coyotes backup goalie Devan Dubnyk a little over two weeks ago. At the time, the deal looked as though it might be too little, too late for a Wild team that had been dropping like a rock with no sight of the bottom.

However, over the first seven games of Dubnyk’s tenure with the Wild, he has given the team the boost they needed. The 28-year-old veteran has gone 5-1-0 in seven appearances with a .935 save percentage, 1.71 goals-against average and two shutouts.

It’s an incredibly small sample to pull from, but Dubnyk has been a big improvement over a tandem that was among the league’s worst when it came to save percentage. The team’s two regular goaltenders prior to Dubnyk’s arrival, Darcy Kuemper and Niklas Backstrom, have combined for a disappointing .897 save percentage to date.

That low percentage came despite the Wild allowing the fewest shots on goal per game in the NHL at 27.1. Their improved possession and stout defense was going to waste due to bad goaltending, which may be a reason that Fletcher never made the move to fire head coach Mike Yeo.

So often, a coach’s demise too closely mirrors the goaltender’s poor save percentage. Many of the other numbers suggested the Wild were better than they were a season ago when the team made the postseason.

It’s not all goaltending though, as the Wild are in the lower half of the league when it comes to scoring with 2.71 goals-per-game. But think of all the times the Wild had to chase games this season. When the goaltending goes, everything else can be impacted in various ways.

According to war-on-ice.com, the Wild have a 97.9 PDO, a metric that combines a team’s shooting and save percentages to measure, for the season as a whole. When both shooting percentage and save percentage are that low, a team is obviously dealing with some bad luck in addition to poor play. Only four teams have a lower PDO than the Wild this season.

However, since Dubnyk arrived, things are turning around. Over the last few weeks, Minnesota’s PDO jumped to 102.4, fourth-highest in the league. The likelihood of them sustaining that for the duration of the season is unlikely, but with Dubnyk between the pipes, it’s also unlikely they’ll backslide to a 97.9.

The Wild are somewhere in between, as most teams are, but it would appear they're going to have an easier time sustaining better play with a goaltender like Dubnyk.

Looking back at Dubnyk’s career, having the Wild in front of him could give the best indication of what he really is as a goaltender. Let’s recall that Dubnyk ended last season in the American Hockey League after being traded by the Edmonton Oilers after five seasons to the Nashville Predators who waived him after two games.

He enjoyed a bit of a resurgence as the backup for the Coyotes, playing behind the struggling Mike Smith, and now he’s back between the pipes as a starter.

Dubnyk’s .920 save percentage between the Coyotes and Wild this season matches his career-high set during the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season.

Minnesota has given Dubnyk both the opportunity and the team in front of him to prove once and for all that he is a legitimate NHL starter. The early returns on that trade are paying off with the Wild at least within striking distance of a playoff spot, even if the hill remains tall to climb.

The Wild are five points out of the last wild card spot with three teams in front of them including the Los Angeles Kings, Dallas Stars and Colorado Avalanche, not to mention the Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks jockeying for position still. It’s going to be a battle, but Dubnyk has helped make the impossible seem plausible once again in Minnesota.