By Tony Abbott -
While the Minnesota Wild have spent the past four seasons swimming with concrete boots named "Zach Parise's Buyout" and "Ryan Suter's Buyout," the Vegas Golden Knights have swum laps around the NHL in terms of grabbing big names. When a star player hits the market, you can't ever rule Vegas out. Jack Eichel, Alex Pietrangelo, and Mark Stone are three cornerstone pieces the Knights got just by being aggressive.
Of course, that constant buying can't happen without selling off pieces. In nearly every offseason, Vegas executes major contract dumps to free up room for its next target. Marc-Andre Fleury, Evgenii Dadonov, Max Pacioretty, Logan Thompson, and Reilly Smith were all major pieces of their puzzle that got shipped out for little return in summer deals.
The cycle might happen all over again. The Knights are interested in Mitch Marner, the No. 1 free agent on the market. However, they only have $9.6 million in cap space, which won't cover Marner's bill. Something has to give again.
That "something," or more accurately, "someone," might be Tomas Hertl, who has been linked to the Carolina Hurricanes and is perhaps officially in play on the trade market. Hertl has full control over his destiny with a No-Movement Clause. He will submit a three-team list of teams he can be traded to on July 1, allowing him to maintain control over his destination. If he doesn't want to go to Carolina, he won't.
And that may -- may -- present an opening for the Wild to strike.
Hertl might not have the will to leave a Stanley Cup contender for Minnesota, but the Wild should be highly motivated to acquire him. He's exactly the kind of center Bill Guerin is looking for this offseason. He's got size (6-foot-3, 220 pounds), he's got a goal-scoring pedigree with three 30-goal seasons (including last year), and he would even provide a marginal benefit in the face-off circle (career 53.8% in the dot).
He's not a heavy hitter. Still, he's impossible to move off the puck and is more than capable of parking down low and screening goalies. If you want a center who can take some of the load off Joel Eriksson Ek, here's your guy.
If the Wild could sell Hertl on Minnesota, he'd provide long-term cost control for the team at center. The San Jose Sharks retained about 18% of his contract, so Vegas has Hertl for five years at a tidy $6.75 million cap hit. Combined with Eriksson Ek, the Wild would have two big, goal-scoring centers in the fold for four years at a combined $12 million. That's a bargain, especially in a league where salaries are about to explode.
Ideally, the Wild would move to obtain Hertl while keeping Marco Rossi, giving them a Hertl/Rossi/Eriksson Ek triumvirate down the middle. All three centers would have skill, a responsible two-way game, and the willingness to crash the net. Few teams would be able to match that. With nearly $15 million in cap space, the team could accommodate all three. As difficult as it would be to trade someone like Liam Öhgren, Hertl -- even as he turns 32 in November -- would be worth the cost.
Still, if the Wild are determined to move on from Rossi (a subject of debate in itself), then Hertl is the rare player who could let Minnesota execute that trade with little blowback. Rossi wouldn't be going to Vegas; he'll make too much money for them to accommodate Marner. However, Minnesota could salvage an underwhelming market for Rossi by using him to facilitate a Hertl trade.
According to The Athletic's Michael Russo and Joe Smith, the market for Rossi is fairly cold. Teams have noticed the odd way the Wild view their 23-year-old, 60-point-scoring former top-10 pick. Russo and Smith speculate that the best offer on the table is the Vancouver Canucks' 15th overall pick in this draft.
That trade would be a disaster, one of the worst in team history. Taking a ninth overall pick, watching them blossom into a top-six center, only to turn that 60-point center into a lottery ticket in a weak draft?
That kind of move can easily seal a front office's fate.
But taking that 15th overall pick and flipping that for Hertl in a cap dump from Vegas? Long-term, that's a loss: Rossi is on the rise, and Hertl will likely be on the decline at some point in his five remaining years under contract.
As for value, a 60-point, 23-year-old center should probably net more in return than a 60-point, 31-year-old center. However, you could argue it's a win in the short term. Rossi and Hertl represent a lateral move from a production standpoint, but the Wild would upgrade in size at center. Hertl and Eriksson Ek would both be imposing down the middle. If you believe that a 5-foot-9 center on the top line couldn't possibly take down the big-bodied centers out West, then you're probably not going to do much better than this.
Still, even if it's a much more even trade on paper, this (or any other Rossi deal that would net Minnesota size at center) would have to be something the Wild front office has to be right about. If Hertl -- who, in 13 playoff games last season, had just one more goal than Rossi had in six -- can't get Minnesota over the first-round hump, that's going to look awful. Especially if Rossi thrives with Vancouver, and has playoff success alongside stars in Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes.
It'd still be incredibly risky. The much safer option would be to add Hertl to the Rossi/Eriksson Ek mix. But if the Rossi situation is indeed unsalvageable, Hertl might represent an out that allows Guerin's front office to resolve its self-inflicted problem while saving a bit of face.
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