One of the best surprises of the season for the Minnesota Wild has been that their top four defensive group is good. They’re damn good. Ryan Suter (56.8% Corsi For at 5-on-5) is playing like a Norris finalist. Jonas Brodin (61.8% Corsi For at 5-on-5) has more than bounced back from a rocky sophomore campaign. Jared Spurgeon (54.4%) and Marco Scandella (54.4%) are playing like true top four defensemen who are responsible defensively, control possession, and are capable of activating from the blue line to create offense.

The worst surprise of the season has been that the team rarely has all four of those blueliners on the ice in the same game. A combination of five players getting the mumps, a couple of injuries, and a Scandella suspension have made it so that the Wild have only played ten games with all four d-men in the lineup. That leaves out the fact that Christian Folin missed five games with the mumps and Keith Ballard missed eight games with the mumps and is now out indefinitely due to a concussion and facial fractures.

All four of the top four have spent a little time shelved for the team and it’s no small part of why the Wild seem to be putting up great advanced stats but currently sit with a record of 15-11-1 in tenth place in the Western Conference.

What their injuries, illnesses, and suspensions have served to do is expose the lack of depth on the blue line after that top four.

This chart makes me believe Chuck Fletcher has been working the phones a bit to see if they can shore up some of the depth issues the team is having. (To keep the chart legible, I’ve omitted Jonathon Blum.)

Almost any way you slice it, Suter, Brodin, Scandella, and Spurgeon are head and shoulders above what else is available to the Wild. Mathew Dumba is tearing it up in the AHL right now and Folin’s game is coming around, but both are rookies and when you see how much one of the top four being out hurts the team, you don’t want to entrust that kind of responsibility to Dumba or Folin quite yet.

Under the Big Top

The Wild are 6-3-1 when all four D-men are on the ice. That’s a point percentage of 65%, which, if carried through all 27 games so far, would place them in the playoffs. Without at least one of those four in the lineup, they’re 9-8-0. That’s a team that’s claiming just 53% of the points available. That’s outside of the playoff picture.

These kind of stats run up and down categories. It doesn’t matter who is out of those top four, the Wild don’t seem to be able to fill the void on an even temporary basis.

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Having the top four healthy and/or present makes a huge difference for this team. They’re scoring more, they’re preventing more goals, they’re controlling possession in close situations at 5-on-5, and the defense is more involved in the scoring. (That last one is the percentage of total points registered that are coming from any defenseman, not just the top four.)

It’s not even just that the numbers are moving in the wrong direction some, the Wild are getting outscored when one of those four is missing. They are scoring over a goal per game more than the opposition when all four are healthy.

Carrying On

You hope that the team is through the mumps and that injuries will abate, but you can’t guarantee that. Scandella is out now with a suspension and it looks like the team has lost Ballard for quite a while. And while Ballard isn’t a part of the top four (and some would argue he shouldn’t be a part of the top six) losing him just adds to the depth problems the team has.

The only option may be to make a trade and bring in some depth. The team doesn’t need a bonafide top four defenseman. They need a stay-at-home, possession-minded third pairing defenseman who is able to play up into the second pair without being overmatched or fading with an increase of ice time. He doesn’t need to be a high scoring player either. Shoring up the defensive end to take the pressure off the remaining players is key.

How key? Here’s the average minutes per game of each of the top four defenders when all four are in the lineup and when at least one is out of the lineup.

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Each of those players is adding over a minute of ice time to their game on average. It’s a situation no coach wants to have on their hands. You’re probably getting less offense out of a player who knows they’re going to play more minutes than usual as they’ll be looking to conserve some energy. That means they’re taking fewer chances offensively in order to stay responsible defensively. That plays out in both total scoring stats above and the percentage of total offense that’s being contributed from the blue line.

You’re also seeing an uptick in the minutes played by the depth guys, which obviously needs to happen when guys are missing, but ideally you aren’t looking to Ballard or Nate Prosser to play 20 minutes per night. That’s not a knock on Prosser, who has played well on the PK recently, but that’s not his role and not how the Wild will start to win more games when the top four guys are out.

Getting healthy would be ideal, but you never know when injury, the mumps, or a suspension is going to change things up. It’s been changing things up all too often for the Wild and counting on the troubles ending is folly — as the team saw last year with the parade of goaltending woes.

The Wild need to shore up their depth issues by bringing in a defenseman who can play up the lineup and take the pressure off the rest of the defensemen. It’ll benefit the Wild if the injuries/illnesses continue and it’ll benefit the team when they’re completely healthy. Ryan Suter can play 30 minutes a night, but he’s worth more to the team if they can allow him to jump into the play a little more and play him closer to 26 or 27 minutes instead.

This is a team that has the ability to contend, but one of the team’s biggest weaknesses has been exposed and it’s preventing them from being a contender or even just keeping their point total in playoff range. It’s time to fix the problem.

(Stats via War on Ice.)