If we're not a true contender yet, we're not going to be for a long time. Koivu, Staal and Suter are big contributors still, but will be declining in production. I'm honestly a little surprised they're doing as well as they are offensively at this point (well, not surprised about Suter, but the other two). Add to that that the kids are all having breakout years, which means we're likely seeing right now their offensive peaks, in most cases. They may improve slightly after this season, but not by nearly as much as they just did. Dubnyk is also not exactly young anymore; at 30 years old, these next several years are his "win now" years. Worse yet, the expansion draft is going to tear away one of our young guys who actually are just hitting their prime, leaving us slightly older and less skilled, effective next season.
I don't know, I think when a team is leading its conference halfway through the season, it's time to start calling it a contender. I know I won't be expecting the Wild to be this good again for a while, at least not until some of our most promising prospects (Ek, Tuch, Kunin, Kaprizov) start to hit their primes about 4-5 years down the road. Like I said a few days ago in another post, we could really use a depth defenseman, but it'd be a shame to overpay for one. Still, might be worth it for the right one.