Wild to begin contract talks with G Devan Dubnyk
The Minnesota Wild are ready to begin contract negotiations with goalie Devan Dubnyk.
By
Adam Gretz
•
2 min read
The turning point in the 2014-15 season for the Minnesota Wild came on Jan. 13 when the team acquired goalie Devan Dubnyk from the Arizona Coyotes in exchange for a third-round draft pick.
Now they have to decide how much of a commitment they are willing to make to keep him before he becomes an unrestricted free agent in July, and according to Chad Graff of the Pioneer Press the two sides are set to begin talking about a new contract this week, perhaps as early as Tuesday.
For the Wild it's going to be an issue of balancing what they saw from Dubnyk this season, and what a realistic expectation will be for him next season and beyond.
When the Wild acquired Dubnyk they were a struggling team that was seven points out of a playoff spot, had one of the worst records in the league, and the playoffs seemed to be more of a dream than reality. There were calls for Coach Mike Yeo to be fired. Almost all of their issues could be traced back to one key area: Goaltending. For lack of a better word, it was terrible, and it was sabotaging an otherwise good hockey team that was significantly better than its record. Dubnyk then started 38 consecutive games and played the best hockey of his career.
He not only gave the Wild the type of competent goaltending they lacked from the start of the year, he was one of the best goalies in the NHL over the second half of the season. His performance was so good that he is a finalist for the Vezina Trophy.
But he's not going to keep up that level of play forever. The real Dubnyk is somewhere between the All-Star level play we saw over the past four months from him and the terrible play we saw from him during the 2013-14 season when he struggled for the Edmonton Oilers and Nashville Predators. Basically, league average to slightly above league average play. And that's good enough to win in the NHL, especially on a team like Minnesota that has a pretty good team in front of him. The key is to not overpay for it.
The Wild already have $61 million in salary cap space committed to players for next season and still have a few roster spots to fill and some restricted free agents to re-sign. The 2015-16 salary cap is expected to be somewhere between $69 and $71 million.
