Wilderness Walk: Ryan Hartman Contract Coming Soon?

That's Wild

• After the Minnesota Wild locked up both Mats Zuccarello and Marcus Foligno to contracts within hours of each other on Friday, the reports of an expected Ryan Hartman deal started to come through. Those three formed a trio of pending unrestricted free agent veterans and Minnesota decided to keep them around. There are ongoing conversations for a Hartman deal to get done, potentially before the season starts.

• Well one player they have recently signed to a contract is Jujhar Khaira. Who is he '[and what type of play can he bring to the Wild? He might just end up being a 13th forward or someone to bring up from Iowa in case of injury, but what else can he do? [Hockey Wilderness]
• Bill Guerin's Wild seems to be focusing on keeping veterans around and betting that they stay the player that they currently are. [Hockey Wilderness]
• The Wild are still doing training camp and recently cut down their roster size to just 31 players, after sending some prospects to the AHL and releasing some try-outs. [The Hockey News]

Off the trail...

• Ranking the teams that are already in the tank for trying to get a top pick for the 2024 NHL Draft. [Yahoo Sports]
• What teams that were in last year's playoffs are going to be out of them, and vice versa, what teams that were not in the playoffs are going to find their way in? [ESPN]
• After a lengthy career, Brandon Sutter has called it a career despite recently joining the Edmonton Oilers on a PTO. [NHL dot com]
• Five NHL rookies who have something to prove during the 2023-24 season. [DailyFaceoff]
• The Pittsburgh Penguins have been spending some time in Sidney Crosby's home province of Nova Scotia throughout training camp. [Global Sports]