The Minnesota Wild have announced their opening night roster ahead of Thursdays home opener against the Florida Panthers.
No surprise here as the Wild will not carry a 13th forward to start the season. This allows the Wild to accrue cap throughout the year.
We saw the Wild do this last year a little bit which eventually lead to a big trade deadline day for Minnesota with several pieces coming to the Wild.
They will also start the season without Jared Spurgeon but will not place him on the IR. So for the first week or so, the Wild will be playing with 20 players on their roster with not a single extra skater.
If they were to call someone up the player would have to make under $818,079. Which means the Wild can't call up Sammy Walker, Adam Beckman, Daemon Hunt, and Jesper Wallstedt as of now.
This is why it makes total sense to not carry a 13th forward and just accrue cap every day and soon enough you can have that extra insurance.
Current roster
Kirill Kaprizov - Ryan Hartman - Mats Zuccarello
Marcus Johansson - Joel Eriksson Ek - Matt Boldy
Marcus Foligno - Marco Rossi - Freddy Gaudreau
Pat Maroon - Connor Dewar - Brandon Duhaime
Defensive pairs:
Jake Middleton - Alex Goligoski
Jonas Brodin - Brock Faber
Jon Merrill - Calen Addison
Goaltenders: Filip Gustavsson and Marc-Andre Fleury
Required Reading