The Minnesota Wild face some important roster decisions as they head into the off-season, while the Dallas Stars could make a cost-cutting trade or two to free up salary-cap room for Jason Robertson's next contract.
The Minnesota Wild's second-round elimination by the Colorado Avalanche may have stung more than their string of first-round exits of recent years.
Led by scoring stars Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy, with a blueline anchored by superstar Quinn Hughes and rising star Brock Faber, with a solid goalie tandem of Filip Gustavsson and Jesper Wallstedt, the Wild's Stanley Cup window seemed to be opening.
Instead, the Avalanche swiftly slammed it shut for this season in five games.
ESPN.com's Ryan S. Clark believes Wild GM Bill Guerin will have a busy summer. With $13.5 million in salary-cap space, Guerin must re-sign or replace several pending UFA-eligible players while trying to bolster his roster for next season.
Clark observed that those pending UFAs include forwards Mats Zuccarello, Vladimir Tarasenko, Marcus Johansson, Nick Foligno and Michael McCarron.
Zuccarello, Tarasenko and Johansson are in their mid-to-late thirties but were still solid contributors and veteran leaders. Foligno and McCarron were trade deadline acquisitions who provided additional experience and grit to the lineup.
All of them could be affordable short-term re-signings if Guerin wants to bring most of them back. However, that would use up valuable cap space necessary to address his club's need for another center among his top two forward lines.
The Wild were linked to New York Rangers center Vincent Trocheck leading up to the trade deadline. However, the 32-year-old Trocheck is likely unobtainable because he prefers to remain in the East.
Hovering over this is whether Hughes is willing to sign a contract extension. The 26-year-old superstar defenseman is a year away from UFA eligibility, with rumors persisting of him possibly joining his brothers, Jack and Luke, with the New Jersey Devils.
In Dallas, Stars GM Jim Nill will have to make a cost-cutting trade or two if he hopes to sign high-scoring left winger Jason Robertson to a contract extension.
The 26-year-old Robertson is an RFA with arbitration rights on July 1 and is also a year away from UFA eligibility. He's completed a four-year contract with an average annual value of $7.75 million, and he could seek a deal similar to teammate Mikko Rantanen's eight-year contract worth an average annual value of $12 million.
Nill has indicated that re-signing Robertson is a priority. Lia Assimakopoulos of The Dallas Morning News pointed out the Stars have around $11 million in cap space, which isn't enough to re-sign Robertson and leave enough to fill out the remainder of the roster.
Assimakopoulos suggested forwards Radek Faksa, Sam Steel and defensemen Ilya Lyubushkin and Tyler Myers as trade candidates. Faksa is signed through 2027-28 with an average annual value of $2 million; Steel has a year left with a cap hit of $2.1 million; Lyubushkin has a year at $3.25 million remaining, and Myers has a year left at $1.5 million.
All of those players wouldn't be traded, but one or two could be peddled to clear space for Robertson's next deal.
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