With Saturday’s 3:00 p.m. ET trade freeze drawing near, we’re anticipating more big trades to follow Thursday’s Jonathan Drouin-Mikhail Sergachev swap. Any teams with difficult expansion draft protection decisions are running out of time to move a player they’d rather not expose, and instead get something in return via trade.
The Minnesota Wild are one such team. With three forwards (Zach Parise, Mikko Koivu, Jason Pominville) and one defencemen (Ryan Suter), holding no-movement clauses, the Wild already have plenty of protection slots spoken for. Expected to go the 7-3-1 protection route, Minnesota will likely protect Suter and Jared Spurgeon on the blue line, meaning one of Matt Dumba or Jonas Brodin would be left exposed to the Golden Knights, who they would gladly pluck.
That is, unless GM Chuck Fletcher can find a trade partner before Saturday afternoon.
According to beat reporter Michael Russo of the Star-Tribune, the Wild have received “quality trade offers” on the two defencemen.
From Russo:
Of his “big five D” — Suter, Spurgeon, Dumba, Brodin and Marco Scandella, Fletcher said: “I’d love to have all five of them, but four would be a pretty good position, too, particularly when you look at players like Mike Reilly and Gustav Olofsson, who I think are ready to take that next step. We still have Christian Folin and Nick Seeler, who was the most improved player in the organization last year. (Minnesota Duluth’s) Carson Soucy is signed and turned pro.
“So we do have depth, but we have five pretty good D. I’d feel much more comfortable keeping four than three. I think whatever you do, you have to be mindful of that.”
With the Habs rumoured to be shopping Alex Galchenyuk around the league after acquiring Drouin, the Wild are a potential landing spot for him, with one of these defencemen going the other way. The problem with that, though, is the Wild would then find themselves in a similarly difficult protection spot at forward, where they are also crowded with talent.
On top of the three no-movement clauses (no word on if they asked Pominville to waive), Minnesota needs to protect Charlie Coyle, Jason Zucker, Mikael Granlund and Nino Niederreiter. Potentially adding Galchenyuk to that mix would leave one of these guys exposed.
The wild card is if Fletcher can work out a trade with Vegas to not pick a certain player off their roster. Minnesota could potentially make a move to shield Scandella or one of these forwards, but that would likely have to be for one of the prospects Fletcher mentioned. The Wild don’t have a draft pick until the third round this year and are without their second-rounder in 2018.
However, according to Russo, Fletcher has not made a pre-arranged trade with the Golden Knights.
Whatever happens in the next day, the Wild will lose a key, young player off its roster. Whether that means Vegas picks up someone for free in the expansion draft, or Fletcher makes a big trade before the freeze, the prospect of losing someone is keeping Fletcher up at night.
“Sometimes at 3:00 in the morning I wake up and remind myself of that: ’You can only lose one player. Go back to sleep,’” he said earlier this week.
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