If I were a hockey betting man, I'd lay a small wager on this. And while it may come off as sounding completely ridiculous, it's not too far-fetched to predict that someday Nick Schultz's #55 will be hanging from the rafters of Xcel Energy Center. Why, you ask? Well, here are my reasons for believing so:
1. He's played more games than anyone in a Wild sweater, currently 681. That's 248 more than the next active player, Mikko Koivu, and Schultz is only 28 years old. By the time he retires, this number could be unbreakable for decades.
2. He's signed for 3 more seasons at an affordable $3.5m per. Assuming he isn't going to get traded (seriously, what team would trade for Nick?), he's going to play another 240 games here. I can see him signing another 3 year deal after that to finish his career here.
3. Who else? At some point the Wild need to retire a jersey, and outside of Koivu I can't think of anyone else. It'd be embarrassing to have only one jersey hanging after 20 seasons of existence.
4. His number won't be in high demand after he retires. I can see the argument against retiring Schultz's number if we wore something like 3 or 7, but 55? I'd even expect no one would choose that number if it weren't retired.
So there you go. Several years from now you'll stumble into Xcel and see #55 hanging from the ceiling and forget about all the turnovers, missed shots and general invisible play. All you'll remember is that I called it here first.
1. He's played more games than anyone in a Wild sweater, currently 681. That's 248 more than the next active player, Mikko Koivu, and Schultz is only 28 years old. By the time he retires, this number could be unbreakable for decades.
2. He's signed for 3 more seasons at an affordable $3.5m per. Assuming he isn't going to get traded (seriously, what team would trade for Nick?), he's going to play another 240 games here. I can see him signing another 3 year deal after that to finish his career here.
3. Who else? At some point the Wild need to retire a jersey, and outside of Koivu I can't think of anyone else. It'd be embarrassing to have only one jersey hanging after 20 seasons of existence.
4. His number won't be in high demand after he retires. I can see the argument against retiring Schultz's number if we wore something like 3 or 7, but 55? I'd even expect no one would choose that number if it weren't retired.
So there you go. Several years from now you'll stumble into Xcel and see #55 hanging from the ceiling and forget about all the turnovers, missed shots and general invisible play. All you'll remember is that I called it here first.
