Nicklas Backstrom Will Return To Wild Lineup

The Minnesota Wild will start veteran netminder Niklas Backstrom this week against Los Angeles

After Darcy Kuemper’s monster start for the Minnesota Wild, it looks like the team will be allowing their original starter to finally make his 2014-2015 debut.

Niklas Backstrom (the goalie, not the Capitals skater) will be playing in the Wild’s Sunday afternoon matchup against the Los Angeles Kings, per NBC’s Pro Hockey Talk.

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Backstrom has not started- or played- in a game with the Wild since January of 2014, when he went on injured reserve for hip and abdominal surgeries. Before his departure from the team, though, Backstrom sat on a .899 SV% with 3.02 GAA for the team.

The 36-year-old Finnish netminder has served the Wild well for almost a decade, posting an NHL career SV% of .916. He has always shared the net with Canadian netminder Josh Harding, but this year’s roster only shows Backstrom and Kuemper in the salary cap chart- and since both Harding and Ilya Bryzgalov were let go this summer, the team will most likely expect Backstrom to be back to his old form.

Many consider Backstrom too old to continue playing top ice minutes for the team, but it seems unlikely that the Wild will automatically hand the starting job over the Kuemper without at least giving Backstrom another shot in net. He will remain under contract with the team until the end of the 2015-2016 season. His contract came with a NMC that becomes a modified NTC after a certain period of time, although Capgeek does not specify when this occurs.

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