Noon Number (November 18th): 92.59%

The word on the street is that Niklas Backstrom has sustained a concussion from the head-shot he received courtesy of Nazem Kadri. With young goalies Darcy Kuemper and Johan Gustafsson better off developing in Iowa rather than sitting on the bench in Minnesota, the Wild may need a veteran back-up who can take some of the work load off Harding's shoulders. It's important to remember that there are big question marks regarding Harding's long-term health, so whoever is picked-up to be back-up could suddenly find themselves in the starter's job if Harding's MS began to affect him again.

After trawling through data about all the NHL goalies who have played in the last 3-4 years, I found that most are either in Europe, in the AHL or retired. In the end, I came-up with 4 UFA options the Wild could look at.

Below I have listed the 4 goalies, along with Harding and Backstrom (just for comparisons sake) along with their basic information, their 5v5 performance over a 7-year sample size, and then over a 3-year sample size.

*SA20: Shots against per 20 minutes TOI

• Rick DiPietro and his "good buddy" Brent Johnson have both deteriorated a lot in the last 3 years and haven't played enough in the NHL to be considered. I wouldn't trust either of them to play a reasonable amount of games for the Wild, especially if Harding was suddenly put on IR and they were thrust into the starter's job.

• Johan Hedberg spent a long time as Marty Brodeur's back-up, and, I've gotta say, his numbers are pretty good. The only knock against him is he is 40 years old, so the Wild would have to be 100% certain that he is physically up to the job before signing him.

• The best option is clearly Jose Theodore. He may be 37, but he has a pretty stellar career behind him, and his recent history is decent too. He came in to do a similar job for the Wild in 2011 when Josh Harding was on IR for the season and did well. I don't think he is better than Backstrom, contradictory to his Sv%, purely because of his age and lack of recent playing time, but he certainly looks like a very viable option. Allegedly he has been keeping himself in top condition in hopes of finding a back-up job, and was tried-out by the Bruins in preseason.

More from Hockey Wilderness:

• Are the Minnesota Wild tough enough?
• Noon Number (November 15th): 34
• Does Brent Flahr Deserve a Shot at a GM Job?
• Secondary Awesomeness
• Noon Number (November 14th): 76.7%