Dobber’s offseason fantasy hockey grades – Minnesota Wild

For the last 18 years (12 with The Hockey News) Dobber has reviewed each team from a fantasy-hockey standpoint and graded them.

The 19th annual review will appear here on DobberHockey throughout the summer. This is not a review of the likely performance on the ice or in the standings, but in the realm of fantasy hockey both for the season ahead as well as the foreseeable future. Offensively, will the team perform? Are there plenty of depth options worthy of owning in keeper leagues? What about over the next two or three years? These questions are what I take into consideration when looking at the depth chart and the player potential on that depth chart.

Enjoy!

Gone – Ryan Suter, Ian Cole, Nick Bonino, Zach Parise

Incoming – Jon Merrill, Jordie Benn, Joe Hicketts, Dmitry Kulikov, Frédérick Gaudreau, Alex Goligoski

Impact of Changes – The big change for Minnesota was on the blue line, obviously. Gone is long-standing leader and former Norris-calibre blue liner Ryan Suter. He was bought out, along with Zach Parise. Ian Cole also moved on and the team signed a plethora of depth defencemen. Aside from Goligoski, none of them are top-4 material, but the Wild used the same four defencemen heavily anyway. The bottom two don't really matter much from a fantasy perspective due to a lack of ice time. Goligoski could bring fantasy value in multi-cat leagues, and he's still an effective defenceman so outside of a locker room presence, the loss of Suter may not be significant.

Gaudreau is an interesting name here. He is the Bonino replacement and had a great season with the Penguins. However, it's his only good season as he only had 84 games with Nashville before that and was a fourth liner. The Wild are betting that Gaudreau can repeat his 19-game sample for a full year. I think he's a good player, but it is a big gamble for the team. Assuming Marco Rossi is good to go, it would leave them with the likes of Victor Rask or Ryan Hartman for the bottom-6 centres. It is doable, and they did it last year, but it also wasn't enough for a deep playoff run. This team needs both Gaudreau and Rossi to pan out for them to take another step.  

Joe Hicketts is intriguing. Personally, I've long thought he belongs in the NHL as a puck mover, but he couldn't crack the Detroit lineup. It makes me nervous that he couldn't break through a blue line that bad. He probably won't have fantasy value, but it would be nice to see him establish himself as an NHLer.

While not a roster change, we should mention Mats Zuccarello. He missed a quarter of the season and was on pace for nearly a 70-point season in 82 games. If he can stay healthy for a full year, he could have a big impact in the top-6 for this team.

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Be sure to pick up your copy of the 2021 Dobber Fantasy Hockey Guide!

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Ready for Full Time – It sure seems as though Marco Rossi is ready to go following his long bout with COVID. He missed the entire 2021 season but updates from the offseason have all been positive. If Rossi is ready to go for Game 1, and performs to the Calder-calibre level we think he's capable of, it changes the fortunes of this team. They don't have two top-end centres, and this would give them a second one, aside from Joel Eriksson Ek. We are all salivating at the prospect of Kirill Kaprizov playing with Rossi, and I hope we get to see it. As long as he's healthy, Rossi should be a fixture of the lineup for the year.

There was a lot of hope that Calen Addison would be ready for full-time action, and he very well may be. The problem, as outlined earlier, is this is a deep blue line. It is possible to beat out someone like Jordie Benn or Jon Merrill, but he won't crack the top for ice time. He won't exceed players like Brodin, Dumba, or Spurgeon. The best we can hope for Addison is bottom-pair minutes with secondary PP time. That might be enough for value, but it won't get him near his upside. He should be ready, it's a question if there's a role for him.

Finally, Matthew Boldy is in the mix as well. His problem might be a productive spot in the lineup. Zuccarello, Eriksson Ek, Fiala, Foligno, Greenway, and Kaprizov have top-9 roles locked up while guys like Hartman and Gaudreau are likely. There just isn't a lot of room for Boldy to crack the roster in a spot where he'll be in a position to succeed fantasy-wise. Like Addison, he has a shot at making the roster, but I'm not sure he'll get the minutes to really be of concern to us. At least not at the outset of the season.  

Fantasy Outlook – This was a top-5 scoring team at 5-on-5 in 2021 but the catch was they also had the highest shooting percentage at 10.4 percent. The only other team over 10 percent was Washington at 10.1 percent. That will regress, it's just a question of how much, and whether they can boost their shot volume enough to offset the drop. They can also offset the drop by improving their 26^th-ranked power play. They have a chance to stay a top-10 team in goals but an improved power play is necessary, and other than Rossi, there haven't been any offseason additions to help in this regard. There should be some doubts as to whether they'll score as much as the NY Rangers again, but they won't crater, either. There is still lots of goodness here, from the forwards down to the goalies.

Fantasy Grade: B (last year was B-)

You can read our other offseason previews here. A new one will be posted daily, or near-daily, for the next few weeks so be sure to check back often.