Considering I woke up in Pittsburgh like 19 hours ago, it’s been a slightly busy day. If you didn’t see all the day’s events, please see the previous meaty blog. Lots of good quotes in there.

Lots of good quotes in here, too.

About an hour ago, I got off the phone with General Manager Chuck Fletcher, who has been in Ft. Lauderdale conducting scouting meetings. Almost every team in the league right now is doing their amateur and/or pro scouting meetings, and they don’t seem to do them in Winnipeg or the Yukon Territory.

They usually go to Boca, Lauderdale, Palm Springs, Vegas and Scottsdale. You can the picture.

Fletcher said this hasn’t been the most relaxing few days of his life. The stressed, very disappointed GM said he actually had to leave the scouts in the middle of watching Tuesday’s 7-2 loss at Pittsburgh because he was so disturbed at what he was watching.

“It’s like a dark cloud hanging over us,” Fletcher said. “It’s unbelievable. Anything that can go wrong is going wrong right now, I can tell you that much.”

Earlier this evening, Fletcher traded a third-round pick to Arizona for goalie Devan Dubnyk, who had a rough year last year as I described on the previous blog but seems to have rehabilitated his career this year.

“I don’t think it’s any secret we have bigger expectations for our goaltending than what they’ve provided for us this season,” Fletcher said. “We were looking to add some depth and add a goaltender that’s capable of coming in and winning games and pushing the other two as well. We need to play better team defense in general, but I think adding another goaltender made a lot of sense. It’s not easy to find players this time of the year. More players are looking to add players than subtract and we’re fortunate we were able to get Devan. He’s had a very good season in Arizona and four of his last five seasons his statistics are quite good and at this point we’re hoping he can deliver more of the same. We’re just looking for him to play the way he’s played in four of the last five years and we’ll go from there. And hopefully the competition will help too.”

Dubnyk, who is supposedly an awesome guy and more importantly a great quote (yes, it’s about me), is expected to join his new team in Buffalo. Coach Mike Yeo hopes that he’ll be able to start Thursday against the Sabres, but the two will chat on Thursday to make sure he’s able.

The hope is Darcy Kuemper, pulled in five of his past seven home starts before aggravating a lower-body injury, can return before the All-Star break or right after. I asked Fletcher directly if he would try to get Kuemper to maybe accept a conditioning stint and play a few games for Iowa during the NHL All-Star break, and he said yes.

Harding is still out with multiple sclerosis issues: “It’s too hard to speculate” if he’ll play again for the Wild, Fletcher said. “He isn’t an option for us right now and isn’t close to being an option.”

Niklas Backstrom has allowed 30 goals in his past eight starts.

If Kuemper, Backstrom and Dubnyk are healthy all at the same time, Fletcher said the Wild will have to carry three goalies on its 23-man roster.

Fletcher said, “We need to find out what our team really is. I’ve been waiting for the answers to come from the inside. I’ve been calling around for weeks. It’s not easy to get teams to sell players early. Most teams are still in and we’ve been waiting and hoping that the answers would come from within, but we’re at a very critical time right now. We’ve got to stabilize here. We’ve got to find a way to win a game and start to play the right way. You’re not just going to snap your fingers and everything’s going to get back to normal, but we’ve shown at points of this year we’re a good hockey team, we have good players, we have good coaches and we need to find a way to become a good team again. Right now we’re not a good team and this is a small step. Everybody’s lost confidence and that happens when you go through these stretches.

“I thought it was time for me to give this team a shot in the arm and we’ll keep trying. We’ll see if we can add more pieces. If we can do it great, but it has to come from the inside too and maybe this is a spark they need to get going.

“I think Mike’s a good coach, and I think we have a good team. But right now we’re in a perilous position for our season and we have to win some games. We’re capable of doing it. But we have to stabilize here. We’ll see where it takes us. We’ve got to get going. We’re better than this. It’s time. It’s more than time.”

Fletcher again said that Yeo is safe.

“We’ve got an overall performance issue here,” he said. “I’m not looking at Mike at all right now. He’s our coach. He’s a good coach.”



OK, that's it for me. I think I've written 50,000 words today. I'm spent. Night. Talk to you after the morning skates Thursday.