Wild GM Chuck Fletcher: "We're in a perilous position for our season"

Considering I woke up in Pittsburgh like 19 hours ago, it's been a slightly busy day. If you didn't see all the day's events, please see the previous meaty blog. Lots of good quotes in there.

Lots of good quotes in here, too.

About an hour ago, I got off the phone with General Manager Chuck Fletcher, who has been in Ft. Lauderdale conducting scouting meetings. Almost every team in the league right now is doing their amateur and/or pro scouting meetings, and they don't seem to do them in Winnipeg or the Yukon Territory.

They usually go to Boca, Lauderdale, Palm Springs, Vegas and Scottsdale. You can the picture.

Fletcher said this hasn't been the most relaxing few days of his life. The stressed, very disappointed GM said he actually had to leave the scouts in the middle of watching Tuesday's 7-2 loss at Pittsburgh because he was so disturbed at what he was watching.

"It's like a dark cloud hanging over us," Fletcher said. "It's unbelievable. Anything that can go wrong is going wrong right now, I can tell you that much."

Earlier this evening, Fletcher traded a third-round pick to Arizona for goalie Devan Dubnyk, who had a rough year last year as I described on the previous blog but seems to have rehabilitated his career this year.

Dubnyk, who is supposedly an awesome guy and more importantly a great quote (yes, it's about me), is expected to join his new team in Buffalo. Coach Mike Yeo hopes that he'll be able to start Thursday against the Sabres, but the two will chat on Thursday to make sure he's able.

The hope is Darcy Kuemper, pulled in five of his past seven home starts before aggravating a lower-body injury, can return before the All-Star break or right after. I asked Fletcher directly if he would try to get Kuemper to maybe accept a conditioning stint and play a few games for Iowa during the NHL All-Star break, and he said yes.

Harding is still out with multiple sclerosis issues: "It's too hard to speculate" if he'll play again for the Wild, Fletcher said. "He isn't an option for us right now and isn't close to being an option."

Niklas Backstrom has allowed 30 goals in his past eight starts.

If Kuemper, Backstrom and Dubnyk are healthy all at the same time, Fletcher said the Wild will have to carry three goalies on its 23-man roster.

"I thought it was time for me to give this team a shot in the arm and we'll keep trying. We'll see if we can add more pieces. If we can do it great, but it has to come from the inside too and maybe this is a spark they need to get going.

"I think Mike's a good coach, and I think we have a good team. But right now we're in a perilous position for our season and we have to win some games. We're capable of doing it. But we have to stabilize here. We'll see where it takes us. We've got to get going. We're better than this. It's time. It's more than time."

Fletcher again said that Yeo is safe.

"We've got an overall performance issue here," he said. "I'm not looking at Mike at all right now. He's our coach. He's a good coach."