Charlie Coyle or Jean-Gabriel Pageau: Which Wild Center Target Is the Better Fit?

After a long drought where center after center who the Minnesota Wild may have targeted came off the board, we finally have news that the team is connected to concrete, available names. The Athletic's Michael Russo reported Thursday that the Wild have "inquired about" Wild Legend Charlie Coyle and the New York Islanders' Jean-Gabriel Pageau.

It's not "Christmas Morning," but theoretically, Coyle and Pageau should help upgrade the Wild at a position of need. Since leaving Minnesota in a trade for Ryan Donato in 2019, Coyle has been firmly planted at center, scoring about 18 goals and 43 points per 82 games since the 2019-20 season for the Boston Bruins and Colorado Avalanche. Pageau is in the final year of a six-year pact with the Islanders, having scored about 16 goals and 41 points per 82 games over the life of the deal.

At first, it appears that the two centers are the same picture. They're decidedly third-line centers who can move up the lineup in a pinch, with a high floor and low ceiling. Coyle and Pageau have some skill to offer, but if they're your first- or second-line center, you're probably in trouble. Their cap situations are also a virtual wash. Coyle is in the final year of a deal that pays him $5.25 million against the cap, while Pageau is making $5 million against the cap in his walk year. That extra $250,000 won't make much of a difference.

But one's gotta be better, right? Or at the very least, one has to be a better fit for what the Wild need. Let's quickly compare the two centers and determine which one Minnesota should pursue more aggressively on the trade market.

While Wild fans know Coyle well -- he played 479 games in Minnesota, after all -- they don't quite know what they'd be getting from him every day. During his tenure with the Wild, Mike Yeo and Bruce Boudreau never could figure out where to play him, often swapping him back and forth between center and the wing. Since then, Coyle has his position and identity. He's taken at least 500 faceoffs every season (50.0% win rate) since 2019-20, standing firmly in the center camp. 

However, his skill set hasn't changed much since he left. Instead, he brings aggressively average skills in a big, fast body.

That sounds like a backhanded compliment, and maybe it is. Still, having average skills for an NHL player is pretty damn skilled. It's just to say that he doesn't quite have the hands to be a 20-goal scorer or 60-point player regularly. But when you put average skills in a 6-foot-3, 215-pound frame, plus strong wheels (87th percentile in top speed in 2024-25, per NHL EDGE)... now you're getting somewhere.

However, that somewhere is "perfectly average in almost every way." Sifting through All Three Zones' player tracking project, almost any chart you want to look at -- whether it's shot contributions, scoring chance contributions, zone entries, zone exits, forechecking -- you're gonna see Coyle's name towards the middle of the pack.

Again, that's more complimentary than it sounds. Coyle is no longer the defensive player he was in Minnesota. Still, he can drive offense at even strength, and that's something the Wild would greatly benefit from. Coyle also brings a level of consistency to the table. Over his past four years (starting from last season), Evolving-Hockey has rated him as being worth 1.7, 0.8, 1.7, and 1.7 points in the standings. It's as close to clockwork as you can get in hockey.

While Coyle represents a jack-of-all-trades type of upgrade down the middle, the promise of Pageau is one of fixing more specific issues in Minnesota. Russo summed up his league-wide reputation, saying, "Pageau is especially intriguing. He’s a perennial 40-point guy who is excellent in the faceoff circle (59.6 percent last season and over 50 percent every year of his career) and on the penalty kill."

Pageau's reputation as a defense/penalty kill type of center goes back nearly a decade. He's gotten Selke votes (though never finishing higher than 13th) in five of his 13 seasons. But that reputation, at this point in his career, is simply that: a reputation. It hasn't been backed up by his actual defensive play during his five years in New York.

On the surface, Pageau seems like a strong penalty killer. Over the past five years, he's allowed 7.12 goals per hour when shorthanded, which ranks 68th in the NHL among 162 forwards with 300-plus PK minutes. In fairness to Pageau, he's been elite at getting offense on the penalty kill. During the same timeframe, only Mika Zibanejad (21 points) and Scott Laughton (20) can claim to have more shorthanded points than Pageau's 18.

However, under the hood, this seems to be at least partly a product of having Ilya Sorokin and Semyon Varlamov in net for most of those games. Of our 162 penalty-killing forwards, Pageau has benefitted from an .883 on-ice save percentage, the 23rd-best in the NHL. Joel Eriksson Ek and Marcus Foligno are the Wild's top-minute getters on the PK over the last five seasons. Both players have gotten walloped -- over 9.30 goals against per hour and bottom-20 of our group of 162 -- but their goaltending has been much shakier.

Removing goaltending from the equation, Eriksson Ek and Foligno limit scoring chances more than Pageau does shorthanded. Foligno holds opposing power plays to 7.66 expected goals per hour (59th of 162), contrasted against Pageau's 9.07 expected goals against per hour (138th). The gap between Eriksson Ek (8.84 xGA/60; 133rd) and Pageau is smaller, but Pageau's pure defense isn't an upgrade from what Minnesota already has.

Nor is it an upgrade from Charlie Coyle, our beautiful Mr. Average. Coyle is tied for 65th in actual goals allowed per hour (7.00) and 37th in expected goals allowed per hour (7.37). 

Now, Pageau turns the tide more often -- he ranks 18th with a 21.1% goal share when shorthanded. It's fair to say that pressing for offense might deflate his defensive stats, especially when he's been so successful at getting points on the kill. But will that continue without having a rock like Sorokin in net?

Having one of the most talented goaltenders in the world behind you makes a team more confident in gunning for offense. If Pageau miscalculates on the Islanders and the puck goes back the other way, then Sorokin has a decent chance of making that mistake go away. Those flubs are much more prone to going in the back of the net in Minnesota.

Without knowing if Pageau's PK success can continue after a move to St. Paul, it seems that Coyle would be the more attractive target. If Pageau can't contribute on the penalty kill like he has on Long Island, the Wild are stuck with a player that is a lateral move from recently-traded Freddy Gaudreau, only with a $5 million price tag instead of $2 million. If Coyle doesn't work on the penalty kill, then Minnesota's not in a worse spot than they've been lately, and they have a player who contributes more in other areas.

Neither would light the Wild's world on fire, but if they have to choose between a one-year rental of two seemingly similar players, Coyle feels like the obvious way to go.