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Wild sign former Lightning defenseman Mike Lundin to one-year, $1M deal

Mike Lundin, Scottie Upshall

Phoenix Coyotes’ Scottie Upshall (8) begins to tumble after skating into the stick of Tampa Bay Lightning’s Mike Lundin in the third period of a preseason NHL hockey game Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009, in Everett, Wash. Tampa Bay won 2-1. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

AP

The Tampa Bay Lightning brought back a lot of the pieces from their 2010-11 season, but a few players needed to go. Along with goalie prospect Cedrick Desjardins and playoff anomaly Sean Bergenheim, it appears that puck moving defenseman Mike Lundin couldn’t make the cut. He became an expendable defenseman after the Lightning re-signed Marc-Andre Bergeron and added Bruno Gervais and Matt Gilroy.

Lundin didn’t take very long to find work elsewhere, though, as the rapidly changing Minnesota Wild snatched him up for one-year, $1 million. This could be a nice (if subtle) move for Minnesota. The Wild are attempting to their traditional weakness on offense by acquiring Dany Heatley and Devin Setoguchi, but recent studies of their 2010-11 season numbers actually indicate that Minnesota’s biggest issues could be in their own end.

(The Wild allowed 32 shots per game, tying them with the New York Islanders for sixth worst in the NHL. That’s an especially bad number when you consider the fact that Minnesota only averaged 26.2 shots per game, the worst number in the NHL. Broad brushstrokes or not, those are the kinds of numbers that explain why your team probably won’t make the playoffs in a given season.)

Lundin isn’t the sort of defenseman who will cure all of the Wild’s ills, but he might be the puck-moving type who could help Minnesota spend a bit less time chasing pucks and retrieving rebounds. His greatest asset is in his efficiency; Lundin sports solid mobility and puck-moving ability in his better moments.

He averaged 20+ minutes per game in the last two seasons with Tampa Bay, but it seemed like his role diminished starkly in the playoffs (just 14:41 minutes per game in 18 postseason contests). Lundin will be the seventh defenseman under contract with Minnesota but should get a nice chance to make an impact with Brent Burns out of the picture and a shallow group of blueliners beyond Marek Zidlicky, Greg Zanon and Nick Schultz.