Do The Minnesota Wild Need To Step Back & Retool?

As a team that has made the playoffs in 10 of the past 11 seasons, nobody thought that the Minnesota Wild would struggle like they are to start this season. Even fewer people expected the goaltending to be as bad as it has been. The Wild have already been forced to make two trades to try and shore up the defense in front of the goalies, but were booed off the ice at home in their loss against the Dallas Stars.

While there isn't much of a problem with the offense, the defense and goaltending has fallen off a cliff. Filip Gustavsson ranked second in the NHL in save percentage last season with .931, but has a miserable .872 SV% this season through eight starts. He has just two wins on the season. Marc-Andre Fleury isn't much better with three wins and a .879 SV%.

Part of the problem has been Jared Spurgeon's absence from the lineup as he's only played two games this season. The Wild will have to also continue to deal with a lot of cap space being eaten up by past buyouts. This will only be a huge problem this season, but they have also been stuck in purgatory for a long time. The team has lost seven first round series in a row and don't seem like they are on the path to break through. A change seems to be needed for their team overall to break through without having to rebuild with some of the players still under contract.