Cal Petersen’s next stop is Washington, where the veteran goaltender has landed a professional tryout with the Capitals and will get a shot to win a contract at training camp.
For Petersen, it’s another chance to keep his career moving after spending the 2025-26 season in the Minnesota Wild organization. He signed a one-year, $775,000 deal with Minnesota in July 2025 and finished the year as an unrestricted free agent.
Petersen never got into an NHL game for the Wild, but he was around the big club enough to serve as part of the team’s goaltending insurance. He was recalled from Iowa multiple times during the season, including late in the year, while spending most of his time with the Iowa Wild in the American Hockey League.
In 33 games for Iowa, Petersen posted a 2.73 goals-against average and an .896 save percentage. That marked his seventh AHL season, and he’s now appeared in 248 career games at that level.
Minnesota’s offseason changes in goal made his exit look more and more inevitable, and now he’s on to a new opportunity in D.C.
Petersen, 31, was originally selected by the Buffalo Sabres with the 129th overall pick in the fifth round of the 2013 NHL Draft. He has played 106 career NHL games and owns a 2.96 goals-against average and a .903 save percentage at the top level.
His best NHL stretch came with the Los Angeles Kings in 2020-21, when he appeared in 35 games and finished with a .911 save percentage.
Over the course of his career, Petersen has been part of the Kings, Philadelphia Flyers and Wild organizations, and he has also represented the United States internationally.
The PTO gives him a path to stick with Washington, but nothing is guaranteed. It simply puts him in position to prove he can still provide depth in goal.
In Other News...
Wild Make An Unusual Goalie Move Fans Will Want Explained
The Wild are taking a little different approach to the NHLs new emergency goalie rules, bringing in Peter Thome as both the teams emergency backup and a hockey operations analyst. Bill Guerin announced the move as Minnesota adjusts to the leagues latest collective bargaining agreement, which now calls for clubs to keep full-time emergency backup goalies on staff rather than relying on the old, game-night scramble.
Thome brings a varied hockey background to the job, with NCAA Division I experience along with stops in the ECHL and AHL, plus work in hockey operations and video coaching. For Minnesota, it is the kind of practical, behind-the-scenes hire that fits the spirit of the rule change, but it also gives the Wild a rare look at how teams are reworking an important position that usually only draws attention in the most unusual circumstances. [Read more 🡒]
Cale Makar Contract Talk Just Shifted In A Fascinating Direction
Talk around top defensemen around the league is already getting complicated, and Minnesota has a front-row view of it through Quinn Hughes. Contract discussions between Hughes and the Wild are still ongoing, but there has not been much movement yet, which leaves the team in a familiar holding pattern as the calendar keeps turning toward the season. Across the NHL, there is plenty of other blue-line uncertainty, from Simon Edvinssons situation in Detroit to Erik Karlssons name surfacing in trade chatter in Pittsburgh.
The interesting contrast for the Wild is how another elite defensemans situation appears to be moving in a very different direction. Colorado remains confident it will get a new deal done with Cale Makar before opening night, a reminder of how quickly these talks can change when both sides are aligned. For Minnesota, the waiting continues, and the longer it goes without real progress, the more every update around the league seems to sharpen the focus on what comes next. [Read more 🡒]
Charlie Stramel Is Giving The Wild A Much Bigger Center Question
Charlie Stramels path has started to look a lot different than it did when the Wild took him 21st overall in 2023. After modest production in his first two college seasons, he found another gear at Michigan State, where he finished with 44 points as a senior and turned himself into a much more intriguing center prospect than the one Minnesota thought it was getting a couple years ago.
That surge has a way of changing the conversation around a prospect, and its doing that here. Stramels rise in Corey Pronmans Under-23 rankings from 102nd to 42nd hints at a player who may be trending beyond the usual third-line projection, which matters for a Wild team trying to sort out its center future with Joel Eriksson Eks role and contract in the picture. [Read more 🡒]