ST. PAUL, Minn. \u2014 Looking to bolster their blue-line depth on the left side with Jonas Brodin still uncertain for the start of the season following offseason surgery, the Minnesota Wild reacquired defenseman Daemon Hunt on Friday, claiming him off waivers from the Columbus Blue Jackets.<\/p>\n
Hunt, 23, a third-round pick by the Wild in 2022, was traded to the Blue Jackets in November as part of the package to get David Jiricek, the No. 6 pick in the 2022 draft. Ironically, now both players could make Minnesota\u2019s opening-night roster because the Wild would have to re-expose Hunt to waivers to send him to AHL Iowa.<\/p>\n
Hunt signed a one-year, $775,000, two-way contract in the offseason with a $110,000 guarantee if his overall salary this season doesn\u2019t exceed his $80,000 AHL salary. He\u2019s set to become a restricted free agent next summer.<\/p>\n
Hunt had a solid training camp for the Blue Jackets, but like so often happened in his previous stint in Minnesota, he was squeezed out because there were seven one-way contracts ahead of him on the depth chart. He was literally the Blue Jackets\u2019 final cut.<\/p>\n
The pickup likely means veteran Jack Johnson\u2019s time with the Wild will soon end. The well-decorated U.S.-born player and former University of Michigan standout and veteran of 1,228 games signed a pro tryout with the Wild in August after playing 41 games last season during a second stint with the Blue Jackets.<\/p>\n
Hunt scored two goals and 12 assists in 48 games last season with AHL Cleveland and didn\u2019t see any games with Columbus. He\u2019s played 119 career games with Iowa, and over two seasons with Minnesota, he had one assist in 13 games. Hunt is considered a solid two-way defenseman who skates terrifically and can bring physicality.<\/p>\n
The Wild play their final preseason game Friday in Chicago and could make final roster cuts this weekend. Barring injury, it\u2019s looking more and more like Jiricek, Danila Yurov and Liam Ohgren will all make the team out of camp. If Nico Sturm is healthy to start the year, the Wild will likely decide between Hunter Haight and Vinnie Hinostroza as the 13th forward unless they want to keep two extra forwards.<\/p>\n
Projected Wild rosterForwards<\/p>\n
Locks (10): <\/strong>Kirill Kaprizov, Marco Rossi, Matt Boldy, Joel Eriksson Ek, Vladimir Tarasenko, Marcus Foligno, Ryan Hartman, Marcus Johansson, Yakov Trenin, Sturm<\/p>\n Likely to make the team (2):<\/strong> Yurov, Ohgren<\/p>\n Vying for a spot: <\/strong>Haight, Hinostroza, Tyler Pitlick<\/p>\n Injured:<\/strong> Mats Zuccarello<\/p>\n Defensemen<\/p>\n Locks (5): <\/strong>Brock Faber, Jared Spurgeon, Jake Middleton, Zeev Buium, Zach Bogosian<\/p>\n Likely to make the team (2):<\/strong> Jiricek, Hunt (assuming Brodin can\u2019t start the season)<\/p>\n Likely will be released from PTO:\u00a0<\/strong>Jack Johnson<\/p>\n Injured: <\/strong>Brodin<\/p>\n Goalies<\/p>\n Locks (2): <\/strong>Filip Gustavsson, Jesper Wallstedt<\/p>\n Likely will start in Iowa:\u00a0<\/strong>Cal Petersen<\/p>\n (Photo: Elsa \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PAUL, Minn. \u2014 Looking to bolster their blue-line depth on the left side with Jonas Brodin still…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":275262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[3110,3112,293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-275261","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-columbus-blue-jackets","9":"tag-minnesota-wild","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115311744484602626","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}