GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- Todd Fedoruk, Aaron Voros and Chris Simon weren't the most conspicuous free agents to leave Minnesota last summer, but what they brought to the table could be sorely missed if the Wild can't find some reliable muscle up front.
Enter Craig Weller, who hopes to make the Wild look smart for signing the journeyman to his first one-way NHL contract. Minnesota opens its preseason at 7 p.m. Wednesday at home against Columbus.
Weller, a 27-year-old from Calgary, Alberta, played six games at Minnesota Duluth during the 2000-01 season and kicked around the New York Rangers' organization for five years before earning his first NHL job with the Coyotes. He played 59 games in Phoenix, scoring three goals among 11 points, but scoring isn't his primary duty.
"I want to have [opponents] looking over their shoulder when they're on the ice," he said. "I might not necessarily knock them down every time, but I'm going to finish my check every time."
Those should be reassuring words for Wild fans, who know the value of a guy who just wants to keep opponents honest and create room for teammates. General manager Doug Risebrough appreciates it, too, which is why he added Fedoruk and Voros to the squad last November and Simon at the trade deadline.
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One can argue about the overall wisdom of those moves; they didn't help in the playoffs. On the other hand, the Wild were never pushed around as they won their first Northwest Division title.
So finding replacement parts was imperative.
"We couldn't lose all the guys we lost and not get anybody else," coach Jacques Lemaire said.
Weller is the one guy Minnesota brought in specificallyfor what Lemaire calls"presence."
Weller said he feels more comfortable trying to score now that he has an NHL season under his belt. During Sunday's scrimmage at Ralph Engelstad Arena, he threw a lot of pucks on net and scored a goal in his team's 6-2 loss.
Just the same, he said, "I still do play a pretty disciplined game; I don't take too many risks. I like to make sure I make the safe play first and make sure the puck's deep in their end. I get it deep and go after it."
That quote could have been taken straight from the mouth of Voros, who impressed Wild coaches and fans with his willingness to scrap and dedication to his role. Voros was a revelation upon being called up from Houston, scoring seven goals in his first 21 games.
But he never scored again, and his playing time shrank as the season wore on. Fedoruk was better, working his way into the top line and power-play units. But the Wild let both go, and each signed deals worth $1 million annually -- Voros with the Rangers, Fedoruk with Phoenix.
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Coincidentally, those are the former stops for Weller. He played 281 games, earning 45 points, with the Rangers' minor league team in Hartford without a single call-up. By the end of his stint he was team captain, but that wasn't necessarily a good thing.
"Once that happened," he said, "I pretty much knew they wanted to me to help down there with the young guys."
So he was thrilled to become a free agent, signing a two-way deal with Phoenix and making the team in training camp. He's even more excited to be with Minnesota, which signed him to a two-year, one-way deal worth $1.2 million.
"That's definitely a confidence-builder," he said. "They came really early in free agency, too -- two hours into the free-agency period, so obviously they had a lot of guys to choose from and they came after me, so that was a good feeling."
Lemaire said he likes what he sees so far.
"Give us a little time [and] we'll know more," he said. "I like what he does, though. I really like what he does; he gets the puck at the net, he goes at the net, finishes checks, works hard. It seems that he understands the game well. But like I said, when we get into the details, we'll see if he grasps that."
