Dec. 27: Both Gaunce and Shore are back on the Wild roster ahead of their road trip, the team announced Thursday night. Their active roster now stands at 22 players.
Dec. 24: The Wild announced Tuesday that they’ve reassigned forwards Brendan Gaunce and Devin Shore to AHL Iowa. Their spots on the active roster will remain open over the holiday break, and the pair of demotions will allow them to exit their LTIR pool and begin accruing cap space again over the next few days. One or both could find themselves back on the roster for Friday’s game against the Stars, depending on the health of injured forwards Joel Eriksson Ek and Jakub Lauko.
Gaunce inked a two-year, two-way deal in free agency and was recalled from Iowa last week after clearing waivers during training camp. He has no points in three appearances with an unsightly -3 rating given his limited ice time. The veteran Gaunce has also fallen a tad short of expectations in the AHL, posting eight goals, six assists, 14 points, and a -10 rating in 21 games. He’s producing just 0.67 points per game after clicking at 0.83 over the past three seasons in Cleveland while with the Blue Jackets organization.
Throughout his career, the now-30-year-old Gaunce has been an expert top-six producer in minor-league action but has never carved out anything above a fringe fourth-line role at the NHL level. In 180 appearances in parts of nine seasons with Vancouver, Boston, Columbus, and Minnesota, Gaunce has 13 goals, 15 assists, 28 points, and a -16 rating while averaging 10:43 per contest. He had a career-high five goals and seven points in 30 games with the Jackets in 2021-22.
Shore, 30, signed a two-way deal over the summer and, like Gaunce, failed to secure a depth role out of camp. He’s passed through waivers twice this season without being claimed and has one assist in 16 games for Minnesota over the past month or so, locking down a more steady fourth-line role for the time being with injuries affecting their forward group. He’s averaged 8:14 per contest and has 19 hits, but he has been a pretty apparent defensive liability. The Wild only control 37.6% of shot attempts with Shore on the ice at 5-on-5.