By Tony Abbott -
The Minnesota Wild's game against the Nashville Predators on Thursday night might have been a game with the season on the line. They had a chance to take their red-hot division rivals -- winners of six straight entering Thursday -- down a peg on home ice and move within four points of the second Wild Card spot.
Unfortunately for Minnesota, they folded again in a high-pressure spot, laying a 1-6 egg. They allowed two goals in eight seconds to erase a 1-0 lead and never came close to recovering.
What good did a 7-1-1 run coming out of the All-Star Break do for the Wild? Nothing much, not after two consecutive regulation losses. Giving Nashville two points while taking zero for themselves puts Minnesota eight points out of a playoff spot (behind both Nashville and the Los Angeles Kings) with 22 games remaining. Evolving-Hockey projects Minnesota's playoff odds at 16.1% entering Friday, and even that feels generous.
With the trade deadline less than a week away, general manager Bill Guerin seemed to make a point to remind his players that he could start selling at any time. He watched his team practice from a highly visible spot in Tria Rink and wasn't shy about taking calls.
It's not hard to read into the implicit threat: Shape up, or you might find yourself out of here. Guerin isn't dressing down his players, but he is carrying the big stick.
That might work, except Guerin's stick isn't a viable threat to most of the team. It's just a pool noodle dipped in brown paint. While the GM can project the illusion of force on the bench, the reality is that, as often as not, his players are the ones who wield the hammer, not him.
It's been said all season long, but it's worth saying again: Who's Guerin going to be able to trade? Just on his active roster alone, eight players under contract have trade protection. That doesn't even count Marcus Foligno, Patrick Maroon, or Jared Spurgeon, who are all on injured reserve. When fully healthy, 11 of a possible 23 roster spots are tied up in either an NTC or NMC. Guerin has signed nine of them, three within the last six months.
That's bad news when you can point fingers at nearly everyone in the Wild lineup and say the Wild need more from them.
If Guerin is frustrated with Ryan Hartman for being scoreless in 15 games (though, to be fair, with nine assists) while shooting under two times per game, what can Guerin do about it? He can't call anyone who can take Hartman. The three-year extension he inked Hartman to in September means the player is in Minnesota until he doesn't want to be.
Dreams of Guerin's cell phone ringing won't be keeping Marcus Johansson up at night. In 25 games since the New Year, Johansson has five goals and seven points despite logging nearly 16 minutes a night. He has a full no-trade clause that extends to next season.
Even when he does have options with a player, he doesn't have options. If Guerin's trying to use the threat of a trade to motivate Freddy Gaudreau (two points in 23 games since January 1) into producing more, that's not going to produce much heat. Not only does he have a 15-team no-trade list, but teams aren't going to bite on a 30-year-old when they'd be on the hook for four extra seasons.
There's no threat from even the most extreme measures because those would still be a poison pill for the front office. Theoretically, Guerin could "bury" either Johansson or Gaudreau in the minors. Maybe that would shake things up. But then he has to explain to ownership why they're on the hook through (at least) next season for the $2 million checks they signed last year. Waiving either player would make Guerin look as bad as anyone else.
Poor performance can also be its own form of trade protection. Filip Gustavsson has no restrictions built into his contract, except that teams would have to (theoretically) give up assets to land a goalie with an .893 save percentage this year. With how he's performed for a playoff contender, he's not a meaningful upgrade, even for a goalie-starved team like the New Jersey Devils.
Jonas Brodin, Mats Zuccarello, Foligno, Marc-Andre Fleury, and Alex Goligoski all have full No-Move protections. Short of trading Kirill Kaprizov, Matt Boldy, or Joel Eriksson Ek, who've carried them back into playoff contention until Tuesday, the core of this team is untouchable. Who, then, is getting put on notice with Guerin's threats?
Connor Dewar and Brandon Duhaime are the players most likely to move outside of fringe veterans like Maroon and Zach Bogosian, who are essentially hired guns at this stage of their careers. Is Guerin trying to put Dewar and Duhaime on notice? They're the only forwards who scored in their two most recent losses! They've been on the block as is, so scoring probably makes them more likely to be moved, not less. Or maybe it's for the line of Vinni Lettieri, Marco Rossi, and Jake Lucchini? Why? They've recently been called out (in a good way) by their coach. They also play fewer minutes and are scoring more as of late than their most significant (and protected) slumpers.
Guerin can only resort to theatrics because those are all that's available to him. He locked his team in for next year and beyond with his ill-advised extensions over the last 12 months. There are very few cards for him to play, and thanks to these decisions, that remains the status quo for the foreseeable future.
The idea of waving a big stick flows from the assumption that the team lacks effort or the proper motivation in these losses. Maybe that's true. But maybe they're simply a mediocre-to-bad team without Spurgeon, relying heavily on hot goaltending streaks and their top line going berserk. If the former's true, a good scare can set them right. If it's the latter, people in the State of Hockey will start wondering why the front office committed so hard to the core of such a mediocre team.
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