Why Ryan Carter, plus much more of Monday's Wild news

Evening from the lonely press room from Xcel Energy Center, my home away from home.

OK, lots of news to get to:

1. Ryan Carter. Why?

I got GM Chuck Fletcher on the horn this afternoon and he said he spoke with agent Neil Sheehy back in July and had several conversations, but at that time, Fletcher decided to get into training camp and see what he had and where players were at before adding more players.

"In the last couple days, talking to Mike [Yeo] and the coaching staff, they felt strongly that Ryan would be an upgrade. He has a lot of experience. He brings versatility to a club, he kills penalties, he shoots the puck, he has had playoff success. He brings good depth to a team and different dimensions to the bottom six and provides the coaches more options in terms of building rosters from game to game."

The Devils wanted to re-sign Carter, but they didn't have room. He spent all of training camp in New Jersey, but Carter just didn't feel like he could wait any longer for GM Lou Lamoriello to open up a roster spot once the Wild came in with a viable offer.

Fletcher talked with Lamoriello today, and the GM "raved about him, not just the contributions that Ryan made to New Jersey, but the work ethic and character he brings. I don't think you can ever have too much of that."

The Wild also tried to trade Kyle Brodziak over the summer to no avail. I cannot imagine that has changed. No chance the Wild wants a $3 million fourth-line left wing or center.

Asked how Carter fits in once Fontaine returns, Fletcher said, "The coaches will have to tell me who they want to play in Game One. It just goes back to all the conversations about the opening night roster and how people speak about it too much. We'll do what we have to do to put the team on the ice the coaches want for Game 1 and we may continually make adjustments after that. I think it'll be a game to game scenario for the early part of the season.

"Based on what we do from game to game, we'll react accordingly."

In other words, there could be an Iowa shuttle for awhile based on the type of lineup Yeo wants from game-to-game. For instance, next week when the Wild travels to Anaheim and Los Angeles, maybe those are games Yeo will want Bickel to play. Maybe other times he'll want Carter in the lineup against faster teams.

2. Christian Folin and Matt Dumba were paired together in practice today. Yeo said that is a likely pair Thursday against Colorado and after seeing them paired together for a few shifts in St. Louis and third period at home against St. Louis, he's confident they can be trusted.

"He had a good camp before that, but he had a real strong game again there," Yeo said. "I would say before that game, we maybe had some decisions to make, whereas after the game there was no decision to be made."

On the guys who made the team, Yeo said, "There's usually nothing final about final cuts. But we feel that the guys that are here deserve to be here, whether it's younger players or older players. We had a good camp. Guys did a good job and I think we've seen people get rewarded for that."

On Folin, Dumba and Zucker outplaying vets, Yeo said, "Those guys all had good camps. I mean, they needed to make this team. None of them had a spot here, none of them were going to come here and play OK and have a chance to be still here today. So those guys have come in and had very strong camps. I think we gave those guys a good workload. We gave them the opportunity to succeed and we also gave them the opportunity to fail, and they went obviously in the direction toward succeeding. They had good camps, so they should be proud of that. Same message that I'll give them, every day is a new day and they should feel real good about being here, but you have to make sure that you stay here."

On Dumba's defense, Yeo said, "We want to continue to develop that. We have to work on the areas of his game that he needs to improve and he needs to bring consistently to be an effective player in this league. That said, we have to make sure we're not limiting him, too, because he does bring a dimension that we need as far as his ability to get up ice, his ability to create offense off the rush, his ability to create offense inside the offensive zone and on the power play. We want to increase the offense that we're bringing from the back end and we believe he's a guy who's capable of doing that."

Folin said, "I put everything out there that I had. After the Saturday night game, I just thought to myself, there's nothing else I can do. I was just hoping for the best."

3. On Zucker making the team one year exactly after being cut, Yeo said, "Last year is last year. It wasn't his best camp. He came in very determined this year and he knew that he had to make the team this year – there was no sense of entitlement. He scored, which is nice. But if he scored and didn't do other things than he wouldn't have made the team. Where he's going to factor in, where's he's going to find a place in our lineup on Day 1, he did the things necessary for that. He was playing a competitive game, he was going to the hard areas, he was taking care of the puck, he was sound defensively, he was a strong penalty killer, and that's going to get him the opportunity to work his way into other opportunities. If you want to look at Nino last year, that's very similar to what he did. There were times when he was on the fourth line, there were times that he was on the first line. And maybe this is an opportunity for Zucker to prove that he can be in the lineup consistently and play in different roles and play different positions. Really for young guys that's quite often how they work their way in full time."
On making the team, Zucker said, "It's huge. We all know we're just getting started as far as work goes. It's exciting and definitely what I set out to do. I'm excited to be here and grateful for the opportunity. I've worked really hard for it. Now I just have to perform. It is big in my mind. I want to prove to myself that I'm not a callup and I can play in this league. I'm definitely not satisfied with it. I want to get better and I want to get better every day. I don't want to be just another guy. I want to be somebody who helps this team win on a daily basis."

4. Yeo said he wants to have an everyday No. 1, but as of now, the goaltending is something they'll evaluate every day. He said "the writing may be on the wall if you want to look at it that way for Game 1."

Actually, I still don't have a clue, although my gut says he goes with the vet, Nik Backstrom. I know it won't be Ilya Bryzgalov.

He was released from his tryout because Backstrom and Darcy Kuemper are both healthy and Fletcher doesn't want to carry three goalies on a 23-man roster.

Fletcher said Bryzgalov understood and will go home to Jersey to see his family and "decompress." Fletcher wants to sign Bryzgalov to some kind of creative two-way contract or AHL deal and those talks will come in a week or two.

Some people on Twitter joked that Fletcher should have subbed "humungous big" for "giant."

5. Yeo on Bickel: "He brings an element that we don't have. I think he's done a good job up front. Even today at practice he looks good. If we decide that we're looking for a certain degree of toughness in a particular game, then he's a guy who could factor in. He has shown that he can play the game, too. We don't want somebody who's just going to go out there and play two shifts. We want somebody who's going to bring some momentum and try to be physical on the forecheck. He understands that part of the game, plus he's there to stick up for his teammates when needed."

6. Justin Fontaine practiced today and felt good. He wants to play Thursday, but while Yeo said, "There's a chance," Yeo continued, "I'll be cautious with that one. He's missed a lot of time here in camp and I've since the pace of play increase since the first week of camp. So we have to make sure that we're making the right decision and 100 percent confident that he's ready to go."

My guess is they hold him out the first two games with this glute injury and play him in Anaheim next week. That'll give him basically two weeks more to heal.

7. If you remember last year, the Wild got burned a few times in the Colorado series by Patrick Roy pulling his goalie with a ton of time left for an extra attacker. So it was humorous today when Yeo practiced 6-on-5s.

Yeo, chuckling, "Both."

The Wild did a lot of situational stuff today, like 4-on-4s, and Tuesday will really work special teams.

Here was Colorado's lines today, courtesy of the Denver Post's Adrian Dater.