Chuck Fletcher and Mike Yeo will need a few weeks to digest how a 100-point team that, for a second consecutive season, knocked off a Central Division champion in the first round can get swept in the second round by the Chicago Blackhawks.
"We're disappointed and, really, a little stunned it ended so quickly," Fletcher, the Wild's general manager, said Monday during his end-of-the-season news conference where he sat alongside Yeo, the Wild's soon-to-be-fifth-year coach.
As players threw their gear in equipment bags, taped sticks together and grabbed hold of the Wild's thick offseason fitness manual, they too were having trouble coming to grips with the fact that after months of hard work, it was all over.
"You go from the all-time high of beating St. Louis to a week later you're at home on the couch. It happens so fast," said Chris Stewart, one of nine Wild players who can become an unrestricted free agent July 1.
The danger in such a speedy, disappointing conclusion to one's season is overreacting. That's why Fletcher and Yeo will take a few weeks to decompress, analyze everything and reconvene in early June.
The coaching staff will debrief. The analytics department will prepare statistical packages. And in early June, management, the coaches and pro scouts will meet to, as Fletcher said, "battle it out" and determine an offseason plan that could result in roster tweaks and trades.
"But we have a lot of guys under contract, so the core of our team will be the same; the bulk of our players will be back," Fletcher said.
Improvement from within
The Wild has roughly $10 million in cap space heading into next season, and that's before potentially signing goalie Devan Dubnyk and re-signing center Mikael Granlund. Coupled with the fact Fletcher said it's not a "great market," the Wild won't be a big player in free agency.