John Shipley: Goalie decision a competitive win-win for Wild, and yet …

Bill Guerin acquired Marc-Andre Fleury at the NHL trade deadline to start in the postseason, not send a message to Cam Talbot. Now, coach Dean Evason has to thread an emotional needle.

The Wild coach has to tell one of those two he won’t start in Game 1 of the Wild’s first-round playoff series against St. Louis on Monday at Xcel Energy Center.

“Extremely easy; both had a great practice today,” Evason said after an energetic practice Sunday morning at Xcel Energy Center.

The decision might be a win-win for the Wild, but someone is going to feel a little bit cheated when Evason breaks the news, especially if it’s Talbot who starts on the bench. He’s been lights-out since Fleury joined the team on March 21, 8-0-3 with a 2.25 goals-against average and .926 save percentage.

Evason might already have broken the news by the time he talked to reporters on Sunday, but if he had, he wasn’t showing his cards.

“This time of the year, we’re not going to,” he said. “We don’t know a couple (decisions) sometimes, but sometimes we don’t want to let the other team know what’s going on either, right? Any little advantage we feel we can gain, we’re going to try and do it.”

The Wild enter the Western Conference playoffs with two goalies capable of backstopping Minnesota to its first Stanley Cup appearance, and after finishing their regular season with a franchise-record 113 points, the Wild appear to have the other pieces to do it, as well – young scoring stars in Kirill Kaprizov and Kevin Fiala, a heavy shutdown line in Marcus Foligno, Joel Eriksson Ek and Jordan Greenway and a deep blue line.

Unless tomorrow night’s starter pitches a shutout and never slows down, it seems unlikely Evason rides one goaltender. When you have quality depth, you use it. But asked Sunday if he envisions using two goaltenders in the postseason — however long it lasts — the coach claimed he just didn’t know.

From a competitive standpoint, there is no wrong answer. Fleury has the resume — a 2.53 goals-against average and .912 save percentage in 115 playoff appearances — and while he has occasionally looked out of sync since arriving from Chicago, he’s 9-2-0 with the Wild. But Talbot has been better, all season and recently. He’s unbeaten since March 3, 13-0-3 with a 2.35 GAA.

Before the trade deadline, with rumors of a Fleury acquisition in the air, Talbot made his preference clear. “You want to go to battle with the guys that have been there the whole year with you,” he said.

There are still Wild fans who can recall the team’s surprise run to the 2003 Western Conference Final, and while the memories of the team’s deepest playoff run grow fuzzier, they likely remember then-coach Jacque Lemaire using two goaltenders to get there.

Dwayne Roloson made 12 starts, going 5-6-0 with a 2.59 GAA and .903 save percentage. Manny Fernandez was 3-4-0 in eight outings with a 1.94 GAA and .929 save percentage. It might have worked longer had the Wild not run into Anaheim’s Jean-Sebastien Giguere in the conference final. The Conn Smythe winner gave up only one goal in four starts against Minnesota.

The Wild will have to win three seven-game series to advance to the Stanley Cup Final. While it happens, it’s almost impossible to imagine them getting that far with one of these goaltenders on the bench for the duration, although Evason claimed Sunday he has no concrete plans.

“We do not have a perception of what we’re going to do. There’s no crystal ball,” he said. “We’ll evaluate as we go and hopefully as an organization, as a staff, as a team, make the right choice.”

As noted, competitively it seems like a wash, yet Evason has a delicate balance to maintain. Yes, general manager Guerin got Fleury to play in the postseason, but Talbot has been here all season, and he’s been good. Whatever decision he makes for Monday’s opener, Evason has to consider how it will play for two goaltenders he needs to be sharp.

Whatever the decision, Evans said, it will be served neat and face-to-face.

“You don’t forget when you’re a player and there’s mind games: You see your number, you don’t see your number,” Evason said. “You don’t forget those things. … You’d rather have it that way so now you can deal with it straight up. That’s what we’re gonna do, that’s what we’ve always done and I think the players respect that.”

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