The Minnesota Wild have a blue-line headliner in Quinn Hughes, but the roster behind him is already looking thin before the season even starts.
Hughes changed the tone for this team after arriving in a blockbuster trade with the Vancouver Canucks last December, and he gives Minnesota the kind of star power that can lift a defense. Still, one elite defenseman can only cover so much ground, and the Wild’s depth is suddenly under real pressure.
That concern sharpened on Thursday when the Wild waived 2021 first-round pick Carson Lambos, according to The Athletic’s Michael Russo. Lambos was never expected to crack the NHL roster, and with no options remaining, his exit felt inevitable. Even so, losing another defenseman only underscores a problem Minnesota didn’t really solve over the summer.
The Wild’s top six are set less than a week before the season opener against the Nashville Predators, and if you stretch to the top seven, Daemon Hunt is in that mix too. The issue isn’t the opening-night group. It’s what happens after that.
Minnesota is built heavily around Hughes and Brock Faber on the top pair, with Jonas Brodin and captain Jared Spurgeon forming what looks like a steady second duo. Beyond that, the offseason moves were limited: Jake Middleton was replaced by Oli Maatta, and 36-year-old Zach Bogosian was brought back.
On paper, that’s enough to get through October. The problem is the rest of the season rarely cooperates.
Brodin has become one of the clearest injury risks on the roster. He can usually be counted on for about 60 games a year, and over the past five full regular seasons he has reached 70 games just once, in a 73-game season in 2021-22. His health mattered again when he was injured in Game 5 of Minnesota’s first-round playoff series against the Dallas Stars and missed the entire second round against the Colorado Avalanche last spring.
Spurgeon’s track record brings its own concern. He celebrated his 1,000th career game with a silver stick last season, but he has reached the 70-game mark only twice over the last six seasons, even though he did get into 79 games last year. There are also fair questions about how much high-level hockey he has left after putting up one point and a minus-2 rating in 11 playoff games last spring.
The third pair doesn’t exactly erase those worries. The Wild did make the right move by dealing Middleton to the Calgary Flames and bringing in forward Blake Coleman, who is projected to start on the second line. But Maatta is hardly a sure upgrade after managing one point and a minus-5 rating in 22 games with the Utah Mammoth before being traded to Calgary in the middle of last season.
Bogosian, meanwhile, is a part-time option who is on the Silver Stick tour this season. He was also rough in the playoffs, finishing at minus-2 while playing through injury.
That’s why waiving Lambos matters. At 26th overall in the 2021 draft, he spent three seasons with the AHL’s Iowa Wild and posted 17 goals, 35 points and a minus-12 rating. He could still end up back in Iowa, but there’s also a chance another team claims him, which would leave Minnesota even thinner on the back end.
The Lambos move also adds to the frustration around the failed David Jiricek acquisition. Minnesota sent a 2025 first-round pick, third- and fourth-round picks in the 2026 draft, and a 2027 second-round pick to the Columbus Blue Jackets for Jiricek, the sixth overall pick in the 2022 draft, but he never found a way into the lineup. That led the Wild to move on at last year’s trade deadline, sending him to the Philadelphia Flyers for Bobby Brink.
Hunt was part of that deal too, but he returned to Minnesota after the Blue Jackets waived him last fall. He did play well in the playoffs, finishing plus-1 in five games, and he projects to split time with Bogosian on the third pair. Even so, he remains more of an emergency answer than a permanent fix.
Unless prospects like David Spacek, Viking Gustafsson Nyberg or Ben Dexheimer take a huge step forward this season, Minnesota’s defensive depth is a major question. And if Lambos is claimed, that question only gets louder.
Hughes can carry plenty of the load. The rest of the blue line will have to stay upright and play up to the standard if the Wild want to keep this from becoming a bigger problem.
In Other News...
Wild Face Anxious Brock Faber Wait Right Before Opening Night
Brock Fabers preseason took an uneasy turn against the Dallas Stars when the Wild defenseman left with a head injury and did not come back for the third period. With Minnesota inching toward the regular season opener on Oct. 1, the timing is hardly ideal for a team trying to settle its lineup and build momentum before the games start to count.
John Hynes said Faber is being considered day-to-day while the club continues to evaluate him further, which at least leaves some room for optimism. Even so, any head injury this close to opening night adds a layer of anxiety for a player the Wild lean on heavily, and it leaves the team watching closely as the final preseason days tick away. [Read more 🡒]
Bill Guerin Fires Back After Wild Playoff Doubt Goes Public
The Wild were still sorting through the sting of a preseason loss to Dallas when outside noise turned up around their outlook for the 2026-27 NHL season. On a recent episode of Spittin Chiclets, Paul Bissonnette said Minnesota would miss the playoffs, pointing to concerns about the teams center depth and the status of Quinn Hughes, a take that quickly pushed the conversation from camp form into broader roster debate.
Bill Guerin did not let that one sit for long. The Wild president of hockey operations addressed Bissonnettes prediction during a TNT broadcast, brushing it aside while also making clear the two know each other well enough for the criticism to come with some personal edge. For a team trying to steady itself after a final preseason setback, it was another reminder that expectations around Minnesota are already being weighed loudly from the outside. [Read more 🡒]
Stars Sent A Clear Message In Heated Finish Vs. Wild
The Wild wrapped up preseason play with a 2-1 loss to the Stars, and the night offered a little bit of everything: a start in goal for Jesper Wallstedt, a look at where backup Riley Mercer stands as the regular season approaches, and another encouraging showing from several new faces. Blake Coleman, Maxim Shabanov and Olli Mtt all flashed in ways that should give Minnesota some comfort as it moves toward opening night, with John Hynes specifically praising Shabanovs feel on the power play.
Then came the kind of finish that tends to linger longer than the final score. The game tightened into a chippy, heated ending, and multiple fights broke out with entire lines from both teams involved, a clear sign that the Stars were willing to turn the temperature up at the end of a preseason meeting. For Minnesota, it was a reminder that even a tune-up can carry a little extra edge when the opponent decides to make a point. [Read more 🡒]