The Minnesota Wild have filled a new kind of role in the organization, and they did it with a name that already knows the game from plenty of angles.
On Tuesday, general manager Bill Guerin announced that Peter Thome has been hired as the team’s emergency backup goalie and hockey operations analyst. The move lines up with the NHL’s new collective bargaining agreement, which now requires teams to keep full-time emergency backups on staff instead of relying on someone sitting in the stands on game nights.
Thome, 29, brings more than just a jersey and a pair of pads to the job. His background runs through five seasons of NCAA Division I hockey, starting as a backup at the University of North Dakota before moving to the University of St.
Thomas in 2021-22 when the program was newly promoted. From there, he finished that season with the ECHL’s Idaho Steelheads and then appeared in two games for the Maine Mariners the next year.
He also has NHL draft pedigree. Thome was selected by the Columbus Blue Jackets in the sixth round of the 2016 NHL Draft. Before college, he spent time in the USHL with the Omaha Lancers, Chicago Steel and Waterloo Black Hawks.
Once his playing days ended, the Minneapolis native stayed in the sport. He spent two seasons with the Chicago Steel, working as both an analyst and director of hockey operations, and most recently served as a video coach for the Coachella Valley Firebirds, the Seattle Kraken’s AHL affiliate, during the 2024-25 season.
In Other News...
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 🡒]
Former Wild Goalie Gets Another NHL Shot After Last Season
Cal Petersen is getting another opportunity to push for an NHL job, this time on a professional tryout with the Washington Capitals. It gives the veteran goaltender a chance to earn a contract at training camp after spending last season in the Minnesota Wild organization, where he was mainly in net for the Iowa Wild.
For Minnesota, Petersens path is a familiar reminder of how quickly goaltending depth can turn over from one year to the next. He brings NHL experience from multiple stops and will now try to show Washington he still has enough left to stick, with the PTO offering him a shot to keep his career moving forward. [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 🡒]