Niklas Backstrom Swatch Card

The Minnesota Wild are currently mired in what seems like their worst slump of the season, at the worst time possible. For a while, as the team was on top of the Western Conference standings, all the talk was about how Bruce Boudreau is an amazing regular-season coach, how acquiring Eric Staal gave the team the best depth in the league - and perhaps the best center line in the NHL as well. And Devan Dubnyk was the leading candidate for the Vezina Trophy.

All that got me thinking about the history of goaltending in Minnesota. With his second Vezina-caliber season in three years, Dubnyk is showing signs of eventually becoming the best goalie in franchise history, a spot that is currently reserved for Niklas Backstrom.

Manny Fernandez and Dwayne Roloson also deserve some credit, and José Theodore's season in Minny wasn't too shabby (15-11-3, 2.71 GAA and .916 save percentage in 32 games), but all things being equal, Dubnyk and Backstrom rule the Wild era of hockey in the State of Hockey. They come out ahead of the likes of Sebastian Bach's brother Zac Bierk, a soon-to-be-retired Ilya Bryzgalov, John Curry, Wade Dubielewicz, Derek Gustafson, Matt Hackett, Josh Harding (he who had multiple sclerosis), Anton Khudobin, Dieter Kochan, ego-driven Darcy Kuemper, and Jamie McLennan.

Lest we forget, however, that the Minnesota North Stars have had some decent netminders as well, including Miracle On Ice goalies Jim Craig and one-gamer Steve Janaszak, All-Stars Gump Worsley and Don Beaupre, Stanley Cup finalists Gilles Meloche and Jon Casey, Canadian Olympian Ken Broderick, Gary Edwards, Gilles Gilbert, WHA superstar Jean-Louis Levasseur, franchise record-holder Cesare Maniago, Roland Melanson, and a list of lesser-known athletes such as Gary Bauman, Daniel Berthiaume, Brian Hayward, losses specialist and record-holder Pete LoPresti, Markus Mattson, Lindsay Middlebrook, Jarmo Myllys, minor-league minute-muncher Fern Rivard, Mike Sands, Gary Smith, Finnish Olympian Kari Takko, Darcy Wakaluk, and Carl Wetzel.

And before all that was Hockey Hall Of Famer Frank Brimsek.

In addition to Brimsek, the following goalies from Minnesota are in the U.S. Hockey Hall Of Fame: Sam Lopresti, Jack McCartan, Larry Ross, Willard Ikola and Mike "Lefty" Curran.

So, in the grand scheme of things, my all-time ranking of Minnesota goalies would look like such:

1. Brimsek
2. Backstrom
3. Dubnyk (would move into #2 with a Vezina win or upon setting Wild career records)
4. Maniago
5. Beaupre

Which brings me to this beautiful card of Backstrom's, from Panini's 2011-12 Pinnacle set and Threads sub-set:

It's #71 in the series, showing him wearing the Wild's white uniform, beautifully capturing the uniform's red and green highlights; it contains a matching game-worn jersey swatch.