Wild ponder long-term contracts for Granlund,…
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Wild ponder long-term contracts for Granlund, Niederreiter
Minnesota Wild's Mikael Granlund, right, of Finland, celebrates the go-ahead goal by Nino Niederreiter, left, of Switzerland off Arizona Coyotes goalie Louis Domingue during the third period of an NHL hockey game Thursday, Jan. 19, 2017, in St. Paul, Minn. The Wild won 4-3. Niedereitter scored two goals in the game. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)
By Chad Graff | cgraff@pioneerpress.com | Pioneer Press
The Wild's two most important pending free agents failed to score in the team's first-round playoff loss to the St. Louis Blues, prompting questions about whether general manager Chuck Fletcher can commit long-term contracts to Mikael Granlund and Nino Niederreiter.
While both excelled during the regular season – Granlund finished second on the team in goals (26), Niederreiter third (25) – the pair has combined to score just two goals, one apiece, in the past 11 playoff games on a team desperate for postseason success.
Fletcher discounted this year's playoff performances as part of a small sample size.
"When you look at five games, you've got to be a little bit careful," he said. "You've got to make sure you read enough into it to know what you didn't do right, but five games are five games. You've got to be a little bit careful. Sometimes guys can get hot; sometimes guys can get cold."
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The concern with Granlund, despite a breakout season that yielded a team-high 69 points, is whether the playoffs become too physical for the 5-foot-10 forward. The Wild will surely want to re-sign the No. 9 overall pick in the 2010 draft, but it remains to be seen whether that's on another short-term deal like his expiring two-year, $6 million contract.
"I think he'll take some things out of this," Fletcher said. "He'll have to learn ways to create more time and space for himself. I just think he's such a competitive and such a smart player, he'll learn."
Granlund and Niederreiter are restricted free agents, so if the sides can't agree on a contract by August, they can take the dispute to an arbitrator.
Niederreiter, who will be 25 at the start of next season, set career highs this season in both goals and assists (32). He is coming off a three-year, $8 million contract, and the question with is whether he can score consistently.
"He's been streaky before, and he'll be streaky again," Fletcher said. "He gets hot, he gets cold. I don't know that he's that much different than a lot of goal-scorers. He certainly made a lot of big plays in Game 5 there, and arguably put a puck in the net that maybe could've counted and certainly made a play on (Mikko) Koivu's power-play goal."
FLETCHER BACKS DUBNYK
Although his team lost in five games, goaltender Devan Dubnyk finished the postseason with a 1.86 goals-against average and .925 save percentage — more than enough for a team that averaged 3.2 goals during the regular season.
"If you told me going in that the series would go five games and we gave up 10, I would've taken our chances the way we produced offensively this year," Fletcher said. "The bottom line was (Blues goalie Jake) Allen played great, they defended hard, and we had point-blank chances that we simply didn't put in the net."
Perhaps because of his heavy workload, starting 63 of 82 regular-season games, Dubnyk's numbers dipped in the final month of the season. In his last 11 regular-season games, he posted a 4-5-2 record with an .886 save percentage.
In July 2015, Dubnyk signed a six-year deal worth $4.3 million a year.
"I have all the confidence in the world that he can be the guy," Fletcher said. "Down the stretch here, 25 games in 35 days, did that impact him? I don't know. … But I thought he played well in the playoffs."
BIG 'D' COMING?
Coach Bruce Boudreau said Tuesday that he'd like to add a big, physical defenseman to fast, puck-moving blue line.
"I do think that that would be something that we'd like," Boudreau said. "But at the same time, when we get that, we're going to look and go, 'Man, I wish we had some more mobility back there.' So, either way, there's never the perfect combination. You'd like to be able to think that you're a bigger team and faster team.
"And getting a bigger defenseman on the back end — a more physical defenseman, anyway — is something that I think we need. Whether we can get it or not, I don't know. Whether we could survive without it, I mean, up until March, we were No. 2 in the league defensively, so we did obviously survive without it. So, we'll see how the summer plays out."
Chad Graff | Minnesota Wild beat writer
Chad Graff joined the Pioneer Press in April of 2013 -- long enough to cover three straight Wild playoff exits at the hands of the Blackhawks -- after working for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Boston Globe. He's lived in California and Texas, but most recently spent a decade in New Hampshire. He watched New England fans celebrate seven championships in his time there, yet somehow his only sports allegiance lies with Nebraska football.
cgraff@pioneerpress.com
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