Devan Dubnyk’s time in Minnesota has come to an end with trade to San Jose Sharks

 

I mentioned in my last blog post (here) that one of the big needs Wild GM Bill Guerin needs to address happened to be goaltending and what could possibly happen with Devan Dubnyk.

Well, one day before the first round of the NHL Draft, Guerin traded Devan Dubnyk to the San Jose Sharks in exchange for a fifth round pick in the 2022 NHL Draft. The Wild will also be retaining $1.25 million in salary and about a $2.7 million cap hit for the upcoming season (which would be the last year of Dubnyk’s six-year contract with the team). The trade actually saves the Wild some money instead of buying out the final year of the contract (which would have cost the Wild approximately $1.67 million in cash spread out over two years, about a $2.7 million cap hit next season, and about an $830,000 cap hit for the 2021-22 season). The question has been asked on whether or not the Wild need to move on from Dubnyk, and that question has been answered with Guerin making the trade.

Dubnyk made the following statement following the trade during an interview:

“It’s been a stressful week, obviously, when you find out,”…”But the conversations I’ve had, mainly with (Sharks general manager) Doug Wilson and the staff and also just hearing from anyone who’s been involved with the Sharks, you just hear nothing but good things. The more we spoke with Doug and other people, the more comfortable we were. We realize this is an extremely exciting opportunity with a great organization and so, the further this went down the road, the more excited we got about it. We were certainly antsy waiting for it to become official today, but we’re very, very excited about it.” (October 5, 2020, nhl.com)

San Jose will be the fifth team for Dubnyk in his career, in which he is 247-195-52 with a 2.58 GAA, .915 SV%, and 32 career shutouts in 520 career NHL games. He also won the Bill Masterton trophy, finished third in voting for the Vezina Trophy and fourth for the Hart Trophy, along with being named to the NHL’s Second All-Star Team—all in 2015. Dubnyk is coming off a rough 2019-20 season that saw him missing time due to a medical situation with his wife and losing the starting role to Alex Stalock. In the 30 games he played in, he went 12-15-2 with a 3.35 GAA and .890 SV%. With this trade, the Sharks will be going with a goalie tandem of Martin Jones and Dubnyk.

So, where does that trade leave the Wild as far as goaltending? The Wild still have Alex Stalock under contract and Kaapo Kahkonen with the Iowa Wild. Free agency starts on October 9 and there are some big goalie names in free agency—i.e. Thomas Greiss (Islanders), Cam Talbot (Flames), and Anton Khudobin (Stars, and who also sent time with the Wild) to name a few.

Between the draft (rounds 2-7 will be taking place on Oct. 7^th) and free agency, Guerin has options for goaltending. It will be interesting to see what transpires and what Guerin is going to do to further address the goaltending situation.

Update:

I previously stated the 2020-21 season was going to tentatively start sometime in December 2020. The NHL stated today that they have a target start date of January 1 for the upcoming season. Whether this upcoming season is going to be a full 82 game season or a shortened season remains to be seen.

Sources:

Michael Russo, The Athletic. https://theathletic.com/2110741/2020/10/05/devan-dubnyk-trade-wild-sharks-draft-picks/?redirected=1

NHL.com (October 5, 2020) https://www.nhl.com/news/wild-trade-goalie-devan-dubnyk-to-sharks/c-319304716?tid=278542340