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Wild will be cautious this summer despite abundance of cap space

Mikael Granlund

Mikael Granlund #64 of the Minnesota Wild skates against the Anaheim Ducks at Honda Center on February 1, 2013 in Anaheim, California. (January 31, 2013 - Source: Jeff Gross/Getty Images North America)

There aren’t many teams that are entering the free agent period with more cap space than the Minnesota Wild, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they will make a big splash this summer.

Minnesota is still a pretty young team after all and Wild GM Chuck Fletcher is planning ahead.

“While this year we have a lot of cap space, things could tighten up over the next two to three years,” said Fletcher, per the Star Tribune. “It’s easy this year to just go out and add a guy, but unless it’s a one-year contract, you have to be pretty mindful. If one of our young guys is going to be better than maybe we’re projecting and he’s going to fill that same role next year or in the future, then we’re just wasting money and we’re going to be short somewhere else.”

Forwards Charlie Coyle, Mikael Granlund, Erik Haula, and defenseman Jonas Brodin are all playing under entry-level contracts that are set to expire following the 2014-15 campaign, so some of them might be in line for significant raises at that point. Marco Scandella, 24, is also set to become a restricted free agent in the summer of 2015.

Beyond that factor, Fletcher just doesn’t feel as much urgency to make a move this summer as he might have in the past when Minnesota wasn’t in as good of a situation.

“There’s not nearly as many question marks,” Fletcher said. “There have been some years where we had to go out and do something at a certain position. This year we can look at ways to upgrade the team, and if we do so, great. But if we need to be more patient and wait to the end of the summer or into the season or even next summer, we have that flexibility.”

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