By Chris Schad -
In a normal season, you would consider Marcus Johansson a bargain. Playing on a minimum salary contract for $800,000, Johansson has four goals and seven points in his first 10 games. He went from cheap insurance in case former first-round pick Liam Ohgren didn’t leap to become a full-time NHL player to a first-line player netting three goals over a back-to-back against the Utah Mammoth and the San Jose Sharks last weekend.
This is the type of move Bill Guerin has been trying to make when the Wild faced Zach Parise and Ryan Suter's buyout penalties. Although the bulk of those penalties is gone, Johansson is still the face of the Wild’s biggest issue.
Through 10 games, it has become apparent that the Wild lacks the depth of a playoff hockey team. What was once the best team in the NHL last Christmas and a team that was expected to be on the rise when they were bounced from the playoffs last spring has a 3-5-2 record and sits in seventh place in the Central Division.
If anything, Johansson’s rise to the top line has become a bigger puzzle for John Hynes and Bill Guerin to solve, and there aren’t many indications that they’re about to figure it out.
Some of this was to be expected. The Wild have been trying to incorporate their younger players for years. But in their eyes, they just aren’t ready to contribute in the NHL. Ohgren is the latest example of a player that many fans (and perhaps management) wanted to take a spot in the top six. However, he's playing in the AHL after a preseason full of mistakes.
Taking a look around the Wild’s current roster, youth has been a double-edged sword.
Zeev Buium has two goals and eight points through his first 10 games, but is a minus-8 on the ice. David Jiřicek has also been up and down, posting an even plus/minus rating but also no points in six games. Danila Yurov has one goal and a minus-6 rating over his first eight career games, presenting something the Wild has to live with until they gain experience.
These growing pains were to be expected. But what the Wild weren’t banking on was a slew of underperforming veterans.
Kirill Kaprizov has five goals and 14 points in 10 games coming off his new eight-year, $136 million extension that kicks in next season. Still, he hasn't scored an even-strength goal and has one goal in his last six games.
Matt Boldy has been another producer with five goals and 11 points in his first 10 games, but beyond that, things get pretty slim.
Marco Rossi has eight points for the Wild, while Joel Eriksson Ek has seven points. Ryan Hartman had two goals on opening night, but has just one goal and two assists in the other nine games. Yakov Trenin has two assists to open the season, and Brock Faber didn’t make the scoresheet until dishing out three assists in Sunday’s loss to the Sharks.
Faber’s saving grace is that he plays on the blue line, but it’s just as concerning for a team that has gone MIA in 5-on-5 this season. According to Money Puck, no team has fewer than the 13 even-strength goals the Wild have scored this season. While they rank 10th with 20.8 expected goals for, that stat will remain irrelevant until some of those pucks start going into the net.
This brings us back to Johansson. If he were doing this on the third line with two productive lines in front of them, it could be the foundation for a team that expects a deep playoff run. But since he’s on the top line, he’s a symbol of the underperforming vets and young players that have contributed to a slow start.
It’s a better outcome than Hynes stubbornly throwing Johansson on the ice to block younger players like Ohgren. But the rest of the team has left him with no choice until someone starts producing.
The expected goals suggest that improvement should come soon, and the returns of Mats Zuccarello and Nico Sturm, who could both possibly be out until December, could also provide a boost. But the Wild needs someone to step up to turn Johansson from a top liner into a surprising depth piece.
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