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ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Marian Gaborik was still trying to figure out how he couldn’t find the back of the net for the Minnesota Wild in their now-finished first-round playoff series. It was too early, he said, for him to talk about his future with the only NHL team he’s played for.
The discussion must come soon, though, with the final year of Gaborik’s contract looming in the fall.
General manager Doug Risebrough said Monday he regretted letting his roster fill this season with 10 unrestricted free agents, a development he called a distraction for the players and a burden for coach Jacques Lemaire.
That means there’s a strong chance that Minnesota will either ante up for a hefty long-term extension for the leading scorer in team history or wind up trading Gaborik to the highest bidder.
“It’s a very good summer to have a very good conversation with him, obviously leaning toward what he wants to do and what we want to do about the future of the team,” Risebrough said. “What happens from that, I don’t know, but for sure it has to be talked about.”
Gaborik was noncommital.
“I don’t know. We’ll see. Have to talk to my agent and just think about the whole year and see how everything was and just try to think about a lot of stuff,” Gaborik said as players packed up their stuff and parted ways following the Wild’s six-game defeat by the Colorado Avalanche.
After a nagging injury ruined a couple of his previous seasons, Gaborik came back strong and scored a career-high 42 goals in 77 games.
He also had a career-best 41 assists and for the most part finally played the way Lemaire wanted him to. The improved discipline and effort earned him the rotating team captaincy for the most important months, March and April.
Risebrough said Gaborik “had a great year” but also cited the 26-year-old’s failure to contribute a goal in the playoffs as a microcosm of his streaky nature. Gaborik had only one assist, in the last game.
“To me it was just a confirmation of Marian and what his strengths and his weaknesses are,” Risebrough said. “I look at it, and he tried. It wasn’t like he didn’t try. It wasn’t like he wasn’t working. It wasn’t like he wasn’t working in other areas. He just couldn’t find a way to score.”
The Avalanche deftly smothered most of his rushes to the net, and goalie Jose Theodore was stellar.
“There was always two guys around,” Gaborik said. “It was kind of a combination, you know? Either there was tight defense or there was Theodore.”
Lemaire was sympathetic.
“The first three games, they never talk about Gabby,” he said. “It’s when they lost the fifth one that they start to talk about Gabby.”
Two summers ago, Gaborik’s contract situation was similarly unsettled. The Wild traded a spare first-round draft pick and prospect Patrick O’Sullivan to the Los Angeles Kings for Pavol Demitra, a fellow Slovakian and one of Gaborik’s best buddies.
“Pav was good for Gabby,” Lemaire said. “Gabby matured since Pav was here. Before that, you were wondering, ’Gabby, is he going to be part of the team?’ Now he’s getting better because of Pav.”
This time, the 33-year-old Demitra will be an unrestricted free agent coming off a down season. He had only 15 goals in 68 games and none in Minnesota’s final 14 regular-season games.
The chance of him coming back is slim, at best.
“We had a good time. It’s been fun,” Demitra said, when asked about his experience playing next to Gaborik under the demanding Lemaire.
Demitra did, however, express an interest to talk with the Wild about coming back.
“We’ll see how this goes,” he said. “In hockey, it’s a business. You never know what’s going to happen.”
Lemaire’s return is also uncertain. Though Gaborik and Lemaire have had their share of conflicts, which perhaps suggests Gaborik will go elsewhere eventually, the player was complimentary of the coach on Monday.
“I don’t think the team would be at this position without him,” Gaborik said. “He made a great impact, and we’ll see how he’s going to decide.”
The same can be said for Gaborik himself.
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