Article: Matt Duchene Is the Wild's Last, Best Hope At Center

[Tony Abbott]

View full article

[FredJohnson]

Douchene is 34…

[Citizen Strife]

Zuccarello is 37 and putting up 50-60 points seasons.  You just never know if you get a Zucc or Spurgeon or a Goligoski.

Wouldn't be my first choice (Rossi and Ehlers is), but centers don't grow on trees.

[0 Stanley Cups]

The previous relationship between Hynes and Duchene in Nashville could either work for the Wild or against them, not sure?  If we were willing to go with Nelson, this shouldn't be that far off, there really isn't that many better options available with the cap increasing for all teams next year.  Unfortunately, I'm not expecting BG to pull off anything better than this at the present moment.

[LoganPk63]

Could the Wild / BG give Duchene a solid base with incentives... a prove-it-contract???

Say, $5.5-mill for the base & up to $2.5-mill in incentives?  And then make sure they leave the $2.5-mill portion in their salary cap reserves. Don't think Dallas could go that high. 

[Scalptrash]

1 hour ago, FredJohnson said:

Douchene is 34…

Perfect!.....for Billy.

[raithis]

1 hour ago, LoganPk63 said:

Could the Wild / BG give Duchene a solid base with incentives... a prove-it-contract???

Say, $5.5-mill for the base & up to $2.5-mill in incentives?  And then make sure they leave the $2.5-mill portion in their salary cap reserves. Don't think Dallas could go that high. 

Dallas doesn't have space to really do much.  They have 8 forwards, 6 defenseman, and 2 goalies under contract and they have just short of $5M to work with.

Unless they move a larger contract out, they wouldn't be able to bring back Duchene unless he's willing to sign for league minimum.

I think they are hoping he is willing to sign for cheap, but after being willing to sign for less twice, I don't think he does it again considering Dallas has been willing to pay other players more in that span.  Then they get to him and say "we'd love to have you back, but things are a little tight..." 

I think he ends up a free agent, but I feel like it's a long shot that he'd be interested in signing here.  He seems to like that area of the country in that he see specifically wanted to be in Nashville, and then specifically zeroed in on Dallas.  I'd think St. Louis or Carolina or a Florida team has a better chance of signing him than we would.  More than likely we would have to overpay a bit if we want to sign him.

[Patrick]

Evolving hockey's salary model works for a young player coming into his prime.  The logic being a shorter deal allows a player to sign another contract.  Hence, less term less salary.  With an old player its borderline retarded.

Who would pay MORE per year and MORE term for a 34 year old player...😂😂😂😂.  

This is Duchene's last contract.

[Mateo3xm]

So here is the thing. Duchene is a good player but he also benefits from being on a really really good team. For some reason it feels like he goes in a pattern where his first year with a new team he does ok, but the next year he seems to build chemistry and does really well after that. The issue is he’s 34. He also did horrendous in the playoffs this year.

I really don’t think this would be a good add because I really don’t think he has much in the tank. Think about how many players are really good at 35. They definitely don’t usually have too many good years after that. If there was someway to get him cheap, then sure but don’t overpay this guy.

[mnfaninnc]

Originally I had thought that we had a chance to get him to solidify the middle, and thought he was doing 1 year deals. This apparently wasn't accurate and he wants term now. I had him targeted once Nelson signed and thought signing him and Sturm would solidify our center depth and size.

Why Sturm? He's an adequate skater, large bodied center who wins faceoffs and plays in the bottom 6. I feel for what this team wants to do, he is a better fit than both Hartzy and Gaudreau at center. 

I do believe the bottom 6 guys who are mainly 9 guys need to be thinned out to 6, meaning 3 need to be traded out, and more if we're giving an opportunity to the kids to claim a roster spot. To me, the last couple would be traded out after camp if they lost their spot. 

As far as Gaudreau goes, I think he's undersized and probably would be the guy Guerin asks "where do you want to go...unless you want to go to Des Moines and help us groom some kids?" 

[Citizen Strife]

"groom some kids."

Ew...that's not the sentence I'd use.