On the Minnesota Wild …
Michael Russo of the Star-Tribune: The Wild enter the offseason with salary cap issues and no picks in the 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th rounds.
The following five players almost take up half the Wild’s salary cap: Zach Parise, Ryan Suter, Mikko Koivu, Thomas Vanek and Jason Pominville.
They currently have $62 million committed to 14 players for next year. They have pending RFAs in Jason Zucker, Matt Dumba and maybe Darcy Kuemper.
GM Chuck Fletcher will have to decide if he wants to buy out Thomas Vanek and his $6.5 million salary cap hit or not. If bought out, his cap hit would be $1.5 million next year, $2.5 million the following season.
That extra cap space could be used on UFAs like Kyle Okposo or David Backes.
The Wild are likely to trade Darcy Kuemper.
Will Fletcher offer up Jonas Brodin or Marco Scandella for a scorer or top center?
Will Fletcher want to sign Mikael Granlund and Nino Niederreiter to long-term deal or use them in a trade?
Fletcher will have decide who he wants as their head coach.
On the Los Angeles Kings …
Chris Nichols of Today’s Slapshot: Elliotte Friedman on Sportsnet 960 on the LA Kings and Milan Lucic.
“They have some huge decisions to make. I was really interested in Lucic’s comments yesterday. I’ve heard that they’ve been going at (contract talks) pretty hard. They tried before the playoffs…
“Lucic, I think, is 100 percent correct when he says he wants to play there and he wants to get it done. I think they’re going to go at it this week to see if they can close it out.
“I’ve heard some guys tell me that they think it’s going to get done. I’ve heard some guys tell me that it’s still a big challenge. That it depends – Lucic, if he wants to stay there, he could do a lot better in the open market.”