Article: The Wild Are Finally Bill Guerin's Kind of Team

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The Wild should be going after Trent Frederic. He's expiring and only 2.3M currently but his 23-24 forty point season will mean he's getting a raise. Could the Wild trade for him? Plenty of teams are interested. He's a big center. Personally, I would prefer him with Ek over Rossi or Knudi who are smaller less punishing players. 

You have to assume the price will be high and Boston would want a NHL-level replacement type guy going back. Would MN be able to make a deal to get bigger, more powerful at center? Would trading Rossi and a future 2nd be enough. Hartman could fit into Rossi's spot but it would be hilarious to put Frederic on a line with Kirill since he bullied the Wild and #97 before. Frederic is the affordable version of a Tkachuk MN has been wanting to find. Playoff experience and could score nearly as many points as the current Rossi numbers. Size and style for the playoffs, NA kid...

Just thinking out loud since for Boston it's looking ugly at the moment.

[raithis]

16 hours ago, mnhockeyfan03 said:

Necas has been playing center recently. I recorded their game last night and he played center and took all their draws when out there.  He was dominant and controlled the play whenever on the ice.  I would trade boldy and Rossi or Gus if they wanted him and another prospect if we could get him.  He is special and would make us much better!

Carolina has about the same amount of cap space we do and Necas is making $6.5M.

Look at their team and consider that they are in win now mode.  Consider that they already have a good prospect pool and won't value prospects or draft picks as highly.  Also consider that the only reason they likely dangled Necas is because they were worried they couldn't afford him and because they were seeing if they could get someone better to help push them to the cup.

The only big pieces they might consider them are going to be Kaprizov, Boldy, Eriksson Ek, and Faber.

Kap and Boldy both make more than Necas and so we'd have to take on an additional player.  They are also the best offensive players we have and Boldy is defensively good as well.  Necas is good, but we don't gain by losing either of those players.

Eriksson Ek is cheaper, but he is the backbone of the team.  Losing him craters the team defense.

Faber is cheap right now, but we don't have any young defenseman anywhere close to him in our system.

All 4 of them are signed on for years except Kaprizov.  If we got Necas, both he and Kaprizov would be UFAs in the same year.  Teams would know we were vulnerable to outbid us and we likely lose one of them, meaning we would be worse off based on who we had to give up to get him.

The only ways I see is getting Necas is:

1.  involving a 3rd team

2.  Trading Kaprizov if he makes it clear he's not going to re-sign and is willing to go to Carolina (I'd want Necas to be willing to sign some sort of extension so it would more likely be a next year thing)

Of those, I'd prefer #1, but there aren't going to be a lot of suitors to swing that type of deal and be willing to give up the kind of player Carolina would want.  You'd need a team that wants to jumpstart a rebuild and bank up picks and prospects for stars.  Carolina isn't that team by themselves.