Now that the calendar has reached Jan. 1, the Wild can extend the contract of Iowa Wild goaltender Alex Stalock or Wild backup Darcy Kuemper if it so chooses.
While the Wild has made it abundantly clear nobody should have one iota of concern, the only reason this is a topic is because as of this moment, the Wild must expose Devan Dubnyk, the best goaltender statistically in the NHL this season, in June's Las Vegas expansion draft.
Every NHL team must expose a goalie for the Golden Knights to select, but that goalie cannot be a pending unrestricted free agent, as Stalock and Kuemper currently would be. The Wild signed each to one-year contracts last summer, not multiyear deals.
Prospect goalies Steve Michalek, Adam Vay, Kaapo Kahkonen and Ales Stezka wouldn't satisfy the Wild's exposure obligation. So technically, as of now, Dubnyk would have to be exposed.
However, the Wild has until June 17 — the date teams must submit its expansion draft protection lists — to acquire another goalie, sign another goalie or extend Stalock or Kuemper. When players are on one-year contracts, they can't be re-signed until after Jan. 1.
Kuemper wants to be a No. 1, so it's unlikely he would sign an extension now. So the easiest solution would be to extend Stalock, who is 9-9-2 with Iowa with a 2.75 goals-against average and .905 save percentage.
Other options include acquiring a goalie before the March 1 trade deadline, signing a European free agent or even bringing back 2010 sixth-round pick Johan Gustafsson, whom the Wild still owns the rights to. He backstopped Frolunda to a Swedish Elite League championship last season, so it's unlikely he'd return to the Wild without a one-way contract.
Kid at play
One of the best renditions of the Wild's traditional pregame "Let's Play Hockey" came Dec. 11 from 7-year-old Obadiah Gamble, a former patient of Minnesota Children's Hospital. Later during the game against St. Louis, Gamble went, as Nino Niederreiter said, "bananas" when Niederreiter scored during an interview with Fox Sports North's Kevin Gorg.