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Alex Goligoski gets brutally honest about his future

The veteran defenseman is getting up there in age.

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As the old adage says, Father Time is undefeated. 

Right now at 38 years of age, Minnesota Wild defenseman Alex Goligoski is reaching senior citizen status in terms of professional athlete shelf life, and he's in the final year of his current contract. What lies ahead? It would certainly be hard for him not to be considering the possibility that he's playing in his last NHL contests. 

Right now, the Wild are 6th in the Central Division, and are nine points out of the final Wild Card playoff spot in the Western Conference. They're all but officially eliminated from postseason contention.

“As the games start building up, you never really know,” he recently explained. “You’re always hoping you can get in.

“You just try not to think about it.”

For Goligoski, his most recent game was the first time that he's hit the ice since February 7. In the 32 games that he's played in, he's registered nine assists. 

“You’re part of the team,” he said. “You want to see the team do well and you want to be part of it. If you’re not playing, you root for the guys. Eventually, who knows, you’ll get back in there.”

“I think you stay in it while you’re in it,” Goligoski said. “You start asking questions later. We’ll see how everything goes here, get to the offseason, see how you feel and go from there. I honestly haven’t really thought about it too much.”

In the 1,074 career games that he's played in during his career that includes stops with the Dallas Stars, Pittsburgh Penguins, Arizona Coyotes and Wild, he's scored 87 goals with 387 assists. 

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Source: The Athletic