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

Once upon a time, when certified brain genius Paul Fenton ran the Minnesota Wild, the team sought to address its long-running center woes in free agency. Fenton reached out to a soon-to-be-35-year-old Joe Pavelski, a five-time 30-goal scorer with the San Jose Sharks. Pavelski's age made him a risk, but coming off a 38-tally season, it was one worth taking for the Wild.

Or, it would have been, had Pavelski bothered to call Fenton back. It was a shame for the Wild, and not just because we never found out what animal Fenton would compare Pavelski to. Pavelski was the veteran presence on a resurgent Dallas Stars team that made the Stanley Cup Final and two more Western Conference Finals showings with him in the fold. He averaged 27 goals and 68 points per 82 games in Dallas, and even had something left in the tank when he retired after his age-39 season. 

Six years after Pavelski spurned Minnesota for Dallas, the Wild are in a similar spot: Desperate to upgrade at center. However, this time, they have an opportunity to make a Pavelski-type move that would even strike a blow to the hated Stars. Matt Duchene is a pending free agent, and he might just be the last, best hope the Wild have at upgrading the position.

Duchene's free agency presents a similar proposition to the one Minnesota faced when pursuing Pavelski. While Pavelski was 35 and averaged 30 goals and 66 points in his previous three seasons before leaving the Sharks, Duchene is 34 and has averaged 26 goals and 68 points in his last three seasons. That includes Duchene's 2024-25 campaign, where he potted 30 goals and 82 points. You're buying his decline years, but he's showing that he's still got it... at least for now.

Duchene doesn't entirely fit the bill of center that Bill Guerin has said he's looking for this offseason. He's not a big, two-way player who will help take the pressure off Joel Eriksson Ek in the defensive zone. But the things he does well are sorely needed on a Wild team that has been desperate for offense since trading Kevin Fiala three summers ago.

Namely, Duchene pushes the pace unlike anyone on the Wild not named "Kirill Kaprizov." The center might not be quite the burner he was as a young player, but he can still pick his spots to turn on the jets. NHL EDGE has him in the 87th percentile in bursts of skating over 20 miles per hour, which enables him to remain an elite threat on the rush. 

Signing Duchene would enable Minnesota to shore up their biggest weakness -- the ability to generate scoring chances in transition -- while taking away from Dallas' biggest strength... which is generating scoring chances in transition. Kaprizov is also one of the league's best at creating off the rush, but he hasn't had a teammate who has matched that pace since Fiala was in St. Paul. 

With Duchene in the fold, the Wild would go from a team with few options at center to one that suddenly has depth down the middle. Suppose they can keep Marco Rossi in the fold. Then, they'd have the option to load Kaprizov and Duchene together on the top line. Or they could pair Kaprizov with Rossi and Mats Zuccarello, and give Matt Boldy a linemate who can carry the transition game, giving Minnesota two lines that can create with speed.

Then, instead of giving Joel Eriksson Ek a break from tough defensive assignments, Minnesota can ice him on a third line with Marcus Foligno and either fellow Swede Liam Öhgren or Ryan Hartman. Either have the capability of forming a terrorizing trio in the bottom-six, the kind the Wild had incredible success with as recently as two years ago. 

There are two big barriers to this bright future at center. The first is the Stars. They want Duchene back, but they're gonna have to commit this time around, it seems. Duchene returned to Dallas on a cheap one-year deal last year, but a team like the Wild could offer the center a chance to compete and cash in.

That is, if the Wild are willing to be the ones to let Duchene cash in. That's going to depend on Bill Guerin's risk tolerance. It's not often that a Pavelski comes around and is, essentially, the same player at 39 as he was at 34. The hope would be that Duchene would be a similarly freakish athlete, and that modern medicine can keep star players elite to an advanced age... but that's still a huge bet.

Especially if the Wild have to overpay to land Duchene, and they might just have to. Evolving-Hockey's most likely outcome for Duchene is that he'll get a two-year deal, which they'd peg at a $5.89 million cap hit. But those odds are just 25%. They rate his odds of landing a four-year pact at 24%, for which he'd receive an AAV of around $7.5 million. That's a year longer than, for example, the Colorado Avalanche were willing to go willing to go on Brock Nelson. But that might just be the price of admission to wrest Duchene away from Dallas.

Would it be worth it? It's a high-risk play with considerable upside. If Duchene resembles Pavelski in his mid-30s, then he can absolutely transform the Wild. Remember when the Wild first brought in Eric Staal, and what a force multiplier that was for Minnesota. With that stabilizing top center in the lineup, other players could sink into roles that better suited them.

It could be the same for Minnesota with Duchene in the fold for the next few seasons. The 2024-25 versions of Rossi and Eriksson Ek were centers who could pass for a top-line threat in the right circumstances. What do those players look like when they're asked to carry a little bit less of the load and focus on the things they do best? Instead of debating whether they can handle a 1C role, suddenly, you'd find yourself marveling at what a loaded middle-six the Wild have.

Could it blow up in their face? Of course. But the Wild were seemingly willing to take on a similar amount of risk in Nelson. They were right to attempt to make the same risk six years ago with Pavelski. Duchene might not be the Wild's Plan A, but he might be the best chance for the team to upgrade at center for the foreseeable future, and it'd be very reasonable for them to go for it.