Moving on from Parise, Suter: Wild coach Dean Evason thinks Wild will make 'seamless' transition

Half of the Wild's defense is new, and the forward lines are unclear.

But coach Dean Evason isn't preparing to overhaul the team's style of play after significant changes to the roster this offseason.

"We think it'll be seamless as far as the people that we have coming in and filling in the spots that we lost," Evason said.

The Wild was in a similar position last season, re-calibrating after several departures and arrivals.

Aside from a completely different goaltending tandem, a third of the team's forward group changed. But Evason didn't throw out the game plan. Instead, he stuck with the aggressive, up-tempo pace that he implemented after taking over in February 2020 while making a few subtle adjustments.

That's also his focus this go-around.

"There are tweaks," Evason said during a video interview with reporters on Tuesday. "Whenever you lose out in the playoffs and unless you win [and] you have a perfect system and everything seems to go well, you start to collect things throughout the playoffs that we felt we could implement into our game systematically."

Most of the turnover is on the Wild's blue line.

Free-agent additions Alex Goligoski, Dmitry Kulikov and Jon Merrill will join returnees Jonas Brodin, Matt Dumba and Jared Spurgeon, and Evason believes it won't take long for the newcomers to get up to speed with the Wild's scheme.

"It's our job as a coaching staff to get that right away implemented so that we can go out and play the game kind of mind-free," Evason said.

This makeover to the back end started when the Wild bought out Ryan Suter, along with Zach Parise, decisions that didn't catch Evason off-guard.

"Nothing was a surprise," he said. "We are going forward. Obviously, this is what we feel as an organization is going to give us our best opportunity to move forward and ultimately towards the goal of winning a Stanley Cup. Ryan and Zach were not only great players for this organization but great people off the ice and in the community.

"We are going to ask a lot of people to step up in all areas with them being gone."

Up front, the depth chart isn't as obvious.

Frederick Gaudreau is a possible linemate for Kevin Fiala; Evason coached both players in the Nashville organization and said the two previously played together. Gaudreau has experience at center and wing, and Evason has considered him at both spots.

Everyone else was with the Wild last season, but Evason is still going to experiment with the lines.

"We've got a long training camp," he said. "We've got great practice time. We've got obviously six [preseason] games that we have to watch, so we're going to have a real good opportunity. But it's nice now that we kind of know what works clearly in the past, but that doesn't mean that it's going to work in the future either.

"We'll definitely play around with some stuff in training camp, which will be fun for us as coaches."

Last season, the Wild went with a by-committee strategy at center and unless management brings in someone else, the team is facing that blueprint once again.

"We've got options at center ice," Evason said. "Clearly, you'd love to stay consistent. But it's such a long year that when you can have your team commit to playing with whoever, that it doesn't matter who you're playing with as long as you're playing with a Minnesota Wild player, then you should be excited about that. Our guys committed to that last year, and we don't expect them to not commit to it this year."

Players on the Wild keep coming and going, and the team didn't nosedive after last season's upheaval.

Now it's time for an encore, and Evason pegged leadership as what can elicit the same response.

"That's why we're very confident in our ability as an organization and as a team and in that dressing room that they will not be flustered by any moves that were made," he said.