Minnesota Wild place Alex Goligoski on Long Term Injured Reserve

Taking his place on the roster is fellow University of Minnesota alum, Sammy Walker, who will slide into the Wild’s offensive plan, in place of the also injured Matt Boldy, who is not expected to go on long term IR, after suffering an upper body injury in the same game. The pro team in Minnesota is now down (D) Jared Spurgeon, (LW) Matt Boldy and Alex Goligoski, all until further notice.

Related: Matt Boldy Injury Will Keep Him Out of Wild Lineup for Weeks

Injury Update: Alex Goligoski will not play tonight due to a lower-body injury.

— Minnesota Wild PR (@mnwildPR) October 17, 2023

Goligoski was supposed to start the season in the press box anyway, but as the team’s emergency defenseman. That was until Spurgeon suffered an upper-body injury during the preseason, which pushed the former Golden Gopher into action for the first two games of the regular season, where he logged an average of over 17 minutes of TOI.

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Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan

Minnesota Wild call up hometown forward, Sammy Walker

The move allowed the Wild to call up Edina native and former Gopher, (C) Sammy Walker, from Iowa, whose contract ($775K) was too large to fit underneath the team’s salary cap, prior to Goligoski’s LTIR designation.

#mnwild have recalled Sammy Walker and placed Alex Goligoski on LTIR. Gives Wild some roster flexibility

— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) October 18, 2023

The 24-year-old Minnesotan was all but forced to stay in Iowa, even after leading the Minnesota Wild in preseason points. Bill Guerin had no other option and everyone knew it, including Walker.

Related: Minnesota Wild Name Kirill Kaprizov Alternate Captain

Last season, Sammy Walker collected 48 points (27 goals, 21 assists) in 56 games with the Iowa Wild. He also tacked on one goal and one assist for the big league Wild, in 9 games worth of NHL experience. With Matt Boldy out weeks, due to his own upper body injury, this is a chance Walker has never really gotten.

Sammy Walker with the hat trick in the prospects tourney #mnwild pic.twitter.com/hQgnHPHNsX

— Alex Micheletti (@AlexMicheletti) September 17, 2023

Let’s see if he takes advantage. His first game as a 2023-24 Minnesota Wild forward will be Thursday night, at home, vs the LA Kings.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan

But Bill Guerin cannot reclaim any of the cap space that’s already been set aside for Parise and Suter’s old contracts. If the Wild general manager wants to make any moves this offseason, he will have to turn a blind eye to what is already done and, instead, look at players on the active roster who can be bought out or traded to create more space.

For the purposes of this blog, we are going to assume these players can be traded without the Wild retaining salary. In reality, there’s no point in Guerin making cap-clearing deals if he has to pay a bunch of outgoing salary to get them done.

Alex Goligoski (D) – 1 Year ($2 million)

Trading Alex Goligoski seems like the only no-brainer on this list. He was scratched more often last season, than he was active. While it’s nice to have an able veteran available in the press box, the Wild cannot afford such luxuries.

Guerin needs to move on from Goligoski. Save $2 million against the cap and let Alex finish his career on a roster where he’s active for every game. It sounds like there was some interest in Goligoski at the 2022-23 trade deadline. I’d imagine there would be even more in the offseason, when teams have fluctuating and incomplete rosters.

Bill Guerin said there was a team that showed interest in Alex Goligoski, but it didn't get far enough down the road where they would have asked him to waive his no-move. #mnwild.

— Joe Smith (@JoeSmithNHL) March 3, 2023

Mats Zuccarello (RW) – 1 Year ($6 million)

Like I said, finding more cap space gets a lot more difficult after Alex Goligoski. The biggest savings Guerin could find, on a realistic level, is Mats Zuccarello, who is going into the last year of his deal. Trading Zuccy would save up to $6 million against the cap for someone who was nearly useless when Kirill Kaprizov was injured and out of the lineup toward the end of last season.

Up until then, Zuccarello seemed like an integral part of what the Wild did offensively. He and Kirill have a type of on-ice chemistry that would be hard to duplicate. But Mats was so bad in Kaprizov’s absence, that you wonder if Kirill’s genius is the only thing keeping his hockey above par?

Is it possible that Kaprizov would be even better with someone more talented on his opposite wing? There are no indications that the Wild want to move on from Zuccarello. But if they can find a team willing to take on his entire 2023-24 salary, Guerin might be able to find a better way to spend that $6 million. Mats has a 10-team no move clause on his deal so he has some control over where the Wild would be able to trade him.

Marcus Foligno (RW) – 1 Year (3.1 million)

Just a couple of seasons ago, the Minnesota Wild’s best line had Marcus Foligno on it. He was 1/3 of the GREEF line, which had Jordan Greenway on the opposite wing and Joel Eriksson Ek at center. They were productive offensively and opponents NEVER scored while those three were on the ice.

But that all changed last season. Ek was needed on other lines and Greenway struggled mightily, before being traded at the deadline. Foligno wasn’t very good either, posting one of the most unproductive seasons in his career.

Then, in the playoffs, Foligno’s physicality became a detriment to the Wild’s ability to win. Whether fair or not, he was repeatedly called for penalties throughout the series, and got tossed out of game 5 for a questionable “kneeing” call.

It changed the ENTIRE complexion of the game.

So the @NHL_On_TNT crew broke down the Marcus Foligno kneeing major from every angle ????️‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/QKksAJk2EO

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) April 26, 2023

Whether you side with Foligno or the refs during that series, there’s no denying the negative impact he had had. As a team leader. moving on from Foligno would be risky and could hurt the locker room. But… for $3.1 million Guerin, again, must ask himself if that money would be better spent elsewhere.

Marc-Andre Fleury (G) – 1 Year ($3.5 million)

If there is any move that might seem obvious on this list, beyond trading Goligoski, it’s moving on from Marc-Andre Fleury. It’s clear that Filip Gustavsson is the Wild’s #1 goaltender, if they are able to re-sign him this summer.

And if they do, then backup Fleury falls into the same category as press box Goligoski. A luxury, not a necessity. Having one of the best backups in the league is nice, but the Wild are poor and can probably spend some of that $3.5 million on a player who will be on the ice regularly.

Fleury and Guerin are buddies, however. And Fleury has already announced that he’s fine with taking on a backup role, behind Gustavsson. Would Guerin take salary cap space over keeping his buddy, “Flower”, in the locker room?

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan

Alex Goligoski has multiple multi-year offers already, but sounds like he's leaning toward a very lucrative one-year deal with the #mnwild.

— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) July 28, 2021

#mnwild have signed free-agent defenseman Alex Goligoski to a 1-year, $5 million contract. Full no-trade clause

— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) July 28, 2021

Goligoski is expected to slide right in to Ryan Suter’s spot in the top-4 on the Wild defense. The irony is there if you look for it. Suter is now a Dallas Star and that’s where Alex spent a large chunk of his career while Ryan was in Minnesota. At 36, Goligoski still brings a lot to this team, even if he’s not the same defenseman he once was. And on just a one year deal, the move makes perfect sense for Guerin.

No love for the hometown Wild (until today)

Alex is a former Golden Gopher and currently lives in Minneapolis but he’s never been a fan of the Wild. I found this quote he gave Russo in a piece that dropped this morning, fascinating. Not only was he not a Wild fan… but in his time as a pro, he grew to dislike them. Alex was in Minnesota (Grand Rapids and the U of M) for the first seven years of the Wild’s existence but it’s hard to care when they become a rival NHL team. Remember, Goligoski spent six of his 14-year pro career in Dallas.

“I mean, I’ve never really liked them, to be honest,” the free-agent defenseman, who hails from Grand Rapids, Minn., told The Athletic lightheartedly earlier this week. “Of course, I’ll never forget (Andrew) Brunette scored the goal in Game 7 (against Colorado in 2003). I think I was a sophomore in high school. Me and my buddies were watching that.

“But maybe it’s just because I’ve been a pro for so long. And in the pros, I really just didn’t like them at all, but, no, I’ve never been a fan. I mean, being in Dallas and Arizona for so long, I feel like I probably played them more than any other team I’ve ever played. So it’s just natural. I just grew to dislike them and all the guys on their team and everything.”

“To be honest,” Goligoski added, “I think they’ve had a lot of success against me. So probably just me being petty and just disliking them because they have beaten me … a lot.”

Alex Goligoski (via Michael Russo – The Athletic)

Well, hopefully he makes his friends, family, and now fellow Minnesota Wild fans, happy in 2021-22. Because this state needs some success from our major-four teams in a major way. Hockey would be a good start.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan