It has been 2 ½ weeks since the Wild's season came to an end for a third consecutive season at the hands of the Chicago Blackhawks.
The Wild completed amateur scouting meetings last week. That's where the staff organizes the draft list heading into the June 1-6 NHL combine in Buffalo.
General Manager Chuck Fletcher has spent the past few weeks trying to let the disappointment and emotion of the sweep to the Blackhawks dissipate.
As I reported Friday, Fletcher was scheduled to begin conversations with goalie Devan Dubnyk's representative today. He also will meet with owner Craig Leipold, assistant GM Brent Flahr, coach Mike Yeo and some of the brass on the business side this week to begin talk about the Wild's offseason plans. This is also typically where they put the budget together for the upcoming payroll.
As a refresher, the salary cap ceiling is expected to be around $71 million leaguewide next season. Before offseason moves, the Wild's cap for next season is already around $61.9 million for nine forwards, five defensemen and two goalies including Niklas Backstrom next season.
Rosters are a maximum of 23 players. This figure is also before re-signing Dubnyk and restricted free agents Mikael Granlund, Erik Haula and Christian Folin. I can't convey this enough: Unless there are significant trades prior to July 1, there is just no feasible way the Wild will be active in free agency for big names. You can just do the math yourself. So please remember that first before you throw a big name at me on Twitter asking if the Wild will be interested.
The Wild will hold organizational meetings June 8-10. This is where Fletcher, Flahr and their lieutenants get together with the coaching staff and the analytical folks currently putting together their research and begin going through the roster. This is where they discuss who may be expendable, who could be trade bait and also what went wrong against the Blackhawks.
I chatted with Fletcher before the weekend for the first time since his end-of-the-season news conference with Yeo.