Wild GM: 'Everything's a go' for Backstrom, Harding after injury-plagued season

Minnesota Wild general manager Chuck Fletcher is confident his team will have both of its top goaltenders in the lineup to start the 2014-15 season – even though neither finished last season healthy.

"Everything’s a go with both goalies,” Fletcher told Michael Russo of The Star Tribune. "Everybody seems to be feeling pretty good, and at this stage, knock on wood, all of our players who were banged up at the end of the season [are] feeling better."

Abdominal surgery ended the season of veteran netminder Niklas Backstrom, while ongoing complications due to multiple sclerosis derailed a very strong campaign by Josh Harding. The Wild were forced to start Darcy Kuemper and Ilya Bryzgalov in the playoffs with both Backstrom and Harding out.

"Now's the time of the year, with about a month to go, you want to reach out and make sure there’s no issues you don’t know about so if there is something you have time to help the process," Fletcher said. "With Josh and Nik, you’re just trying to reach out and see how they’re doing. They’re both doing really well."

Kuemper remains unsigned after finishing the final year of his entry-level contract, but Fletcher insists Kuemper is part of Minnesota's future and the team is happy with its three goaltenders.

"God forbid if a situation happens like last year, then we’ll deal with it," he said. "We have three goalies. It’s not like we have one. We have three. We feel we have depth, quality and quantity, and there’s just no reason to doubt the players that are there.”