Wild Re-Sign Dumba

It was a big day for restricted free agent defensemen on Thursday and the last RFA for the Minnesota Wild put pen to paper, as Matt Dumba signed a 2-year, $5.1 million deal to cap it all off.

Coming out of his entry-level deal, this 2-year deal will be a bridge towards something long-term, as the 22-year old continues to develop at the NHL level, which is certainly a credit to his game, as a lot of young defenders don't get that sort of opportunity.

In the 2016 season, he was able to appear in 81 games, picking up 10 goals and 26 points, both career-highs.  His numbers were good enough to rank him 58th among defensemen, which has him smack dab in the middle of the pool worthy blueliners.

With another year under his belt, it would be fairly safe to assume that Dumba's game should take another step, at the very least, so his projection will suggest another boost in scoring, putting him in the 35-point range for the 2017 season.  A season like that would certainly make for a formidable blueline group for the Wild.

The overall look of the Wild hasn't changed a great deal in this off-season, opting to make a couple additions, while trimming some of the fat.  Their cap situation does seem to hinder what they can and cannot do, as the projected roster (in colour below) is nice and tight to the cap ceiling, just a shade under $200,000 below and there are some roster spots that will be open for training camp, namely the six in blue.

The jury is still out, as to whether or not they have actually improved or not.

Forwards	Cap	Defense	Cap	Goalies	Cap
Zach Parise	7.538	Ryan Suter	7.538	Devan Dubnyk	4.333
Mikko Koivu	6.750	Jared Spurgeon	5.188
Jason Pominville	5.600	Marco Scandella	4.000
Eric Staal	3.500	Matt Dumba	2.550
Charlie Coyle	3.200
Mikael Granlund	3.000
Nino Niederreiter	2.667
Erik Haula	1.000
Jason Zucker	2.000	Jonas Brodin	4.167	Darcy Kuemper	1.550
Chris Stewart	1.150
Alex Tuch	0.925	Mike Reilly	0.925
Christoph Bertschy	0.776	Christian Folin	0.725
Zac Dalpe	0.600	Nate Prosser	0.625
Joel Eriksson Ek	0.894	Gustav Olofsson	0.795	Adam Vay	0.843
Brady Brassart	0.837	Nick Seeler	0.718	Stephen Michalek	0.688
Mario Lucia	0.793	Dylan Labbe	0.693	Alex Stalock	0.650
Sam Anas	0.793	Zach Palmquist	0.660
Adam Gilmour	0.718	Victor Bartley	0.650
Grayson Downing	0.693	Hunter Warner	0.612
Chase Lang	0.687	Alex Gudbranson	0.610
Kurtis Gabriel	0.667	Guillaume Gelinas	0.597
Pavel Jenys	0.662
Jordan Schroeder	0.650
Zack Mitchell	0.615
Marc Hagel	0.605
Tyler Graovac	0.600
Pat Cannone	0.600

Pool worthy, non-pool roster players, assumed roster fill-ins,  injured/retired cap hits, in the system