Zucker's breakout season complicates Wild's expansion decisions

Few teams face a trickier road ahead than the Minnesota Wild.

That's because the Wild, who sit atop the West at the All-Star break, will soon face the challenges that come with success.

Where the divisional rival Chicago Blackhawks have been hammered with keeping a winning group together under the salary cap, the Wild will face a similar difficulty ahead of the summer expansion draft.

That's when the incoming Vegas Golden Knights will have their pick of the litter from the NHL's current 30 clubs, with each team having to sacrifice one player to Sin City.

As a refresher, each club will have its choice of protection prior to the expansion draft: either seven forwards and three defensemen, or eight skaters of any combination. Each team can also protect a single goaltender.

For the Wild, the complication comes in owning arguably the league's deepest blue line. No doubt Minnesota will want to retain all of Jared Spurgeon, Jonas Brodin, Marco Scandella, Matt Dumba, and top defender Ryan Suter, who is automatically protected given his no-movement clause.

That leaves just three slots open under the second protection scenario, and it should come as no surprise that a team performing as well as the Wild has more than three forwards it will want to keep in the fold.

But the decision at the forward ranks is a difficult one for Wild general manager Chuck Fletcher, as three players hold full no-move clauses: captain Mikko Koivu, Zach Parise, and Jason Pominville.

As a result, a handful of other useful players would be left exposed, including center Eric Staal, who is having a turnaround season in his first year in Minnesota, plus the likes of Charlie Coyle, Nino Niederreiter, and Mikael Granlund.

The last is Jason Zucker, and the 25-year-old has made himself part of the protection conversation given the career-best season he's currently having. Through 48 games this season, Zucker has tallied 14 goals and 19 assists, ranking fifth for points among his teammates.

One other wrinkle? Zucker is a native of Las Vegas, and it's tough to underestimate the appeal of a hometown player in a new market, particularly one that has proven to have a big impact on the game like Zucker.

For the Wild, this is just the tip of the iceberg for Zucker. The former second-round pick has already exceeded his previous career best, when he put up 26 points in just 51 games in 2014-15. This year, Zucker is on pace for more than double that number, projected to reach 56 points.

No doubt Fletcher and the Wild will want to keep Zucker around, and certainly won't want to lose him for nothing to the Golden Knights. That means somebody else will be on borrowed time in St. Paul.

In what has been the franchise's best season since joining the NHL in 2000, it's bright times ahead for the Wild, with the team a legitimate threat to win it all come June. But the challenges of that success won't be far behind.