Five players Wild might have to move on from this offseason

Wild general manager Bill Guerin talked to reporters earlier this week and expressed disappointment about the 2022-23 season. While he wouldn’t go as far as calling it a failure, Guerin clearly felt this group of players was good enough to make a run.

Now the Wild are left to pick up the pieces heading into a summer that could spell a lot of change for the NHL franchise.

It’s common knowledge at this point that the Wild have minimal cap space to work with in the coming months. After signing veteran winger Marcus Johansson to a 2-year, $ 4 million contract last week, the Wild have about $8 million at their disposal.

Here are five players the Wild might have to move on from because of the cap crunch:

Matt Dumba

It’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that star defenseman Matt Dumba has played his last game with the Wild. As much as Dumba wants to stay in Minnesota, he is an unrestricted free agent, and this could be the last big contract he signs in his career. Unless he takes a major hometown discount, there’s no way the Wild can afford to bring him back. Some prognosticators think he will fetch in the upward of $6 million annually on the open market.

Gus Nyquist

In a perfect world for the Wild, they would work something out with savvy winger Gus Nyquist. He proved to be a perfect fit in the playoffs and he clearly has something left in the tank. The only issue is that Nyquist wants to cash out once more now that he’s approaching the twilight of his career. It seems like when the Wild decided to sign Johansson, they did so knowing it would likely impede them from being able to sign Nyquist as well.

Ryan Reaves

There’s a good chance the Wild find a way to strike a deal with Ryan Reaves. There’s no denying that Reaves brings energy to the locker room and the Wild could use that with Dumba likely on the way out. But the Wild have a handful of players in the farm system who could fill a similar role in the bottom half of the lineup, so perhaps they choose to fill internally as a way to save some money.

Oskar Sundqvist

It’s a good bet that Oskar Sundqvist is playing for a different team during the 2023-24 season. He was a healthy scratch for the Wild in the playoffs despite being acquired at the trade deadline for his experience. There isn’t room for Sundqvist in the lineup, and that’s not a knock on him as a player. He will latch on somewhere else no problem.

John Klingberg

After betting on himself last summer, John Klingberg will likely be forced to do the same thing this summer. He failed to produce the way he hoped, and because of that, he likely won’t sign for top dollar. Though he struggled during the 2022-23 season, Klingberg can still walk the blue line with the best of them, and that will be reason enough for another team to give him a chance.