Michael Russo's Sunday Insider: Wild has real defensive depth

The adage in hockey is you can never have too many defensemen, but Wild coach Mike Yeo revised that Thursday: "Good defensemen."

"Everyone always has lots of defensemen. You can't have too many good defensemen," Yeo said.

Almost a quarter into this season, the Wild has proven Yeo's point. Despite an array of injuries, the Wild defense continue to play well.

Mike Lundin hasn't played a game, although he could be closing in on his Wild debut. Greg Zanon has been out a month. Marek Zidlicky and Marco Scandella have concussions.

But whether it's Jared Spurgeon, who looks young and small enough to be playing at Minnetonka, or Justin Falk, Nate Prosser or some guy named Kris Fredheim, the Wild blue-liners have fit in perfectly and, most important, contributed to the Wild's early-season success.

Take Prosser and the anonymous Fredheim (Fred-HAME), whose name has been mispronounced Fred-HIME by Yeo (not YOW), his coach in Houston last season. Five years ago, Prosser and Fredheim were in-and-out freshmen defensemen at Colorado College.

"He'd play Friday nights, I'd play Saturday," Prosser said.

The last two games, Prosser and Fredheim played in the same NHL lineup, which as Prosser says "is just nuts."

But the Wild's scouts unearthed Prosser and Fredheim, a Vancouver Canucks castoff, the way they unearthed Spurgeon, a New York Islanders castoff.

"You hate to see guys going down [with injury], but good teams have other guys step in and do the job," Wild goalie Niklas Backstrom said about the Wild defensemen after his 1-0 shutout of Colorado on Thursday.

Before the season, the Wild's blue line was projected to be the team's weakest link if for no other reason than it had only three returning veterans -- Zanon, Zidlicky and Nick Schultz -- and had traded brash offensive defenseman Brent Burns.

General Manager Chuck Fletcher said he wasn't concerned. He talked repeatedly about the Wild's quality organizational depth on the back end.

Weeks later, Scandella, 21, has been one of the Wild's best defensemen. Spurgeon, 21, continues to prove he belongs. Clayton Stoner, a seven-year pro, has been a poster child for steadiness. Falk, 23, a big, mobile four-year pro, has improved dramatically from a year ago.

Prosser has been sensational, plus the Wild still has Drew Bagnall, Tyler Cuma and Chay Genoway in Houston -- three guys Fletcher said the Wild would have "no problem" calling up if, as bad luck would have it, more defensemen went down.

"We have depth. It's younger depth, but nevertheless, it's depth," Fletcher said. "You either can play or can't play, and we have lots of guys who can play."

Fletcher had his chance to trade some of these blue-liners. Can you imagine the state of the Wild right now if he had?

"It's always dangerous looking to trade defensemen when you think you have extra defensemen because injuries come and they come quickly, and they often come several at a time as we've seen," Fletcher said.