By Tony Abbott -
The Minnesota Wild's Saturday night win over the Vancouver Canucks was necessary to turn down the heat. Losing eight of nine games, including the first four of a six-game homestand, was threatening to boil over. But the win just lifted the pot from the flame for two days. A loss tonight against the Nashville Predators could put Minnesota right back on the stove.
If so, you'll start to hear some outcry from the fans, who won't be appreciative of a 1-3-2 or 1-2-3 homestand. We can also bet that ownership, the front office, and the coach will not enjoy that, either. In fact, we've started hearing the first rumblings of a shake-up with the Wild.
From Friday's piece in The Athletic, Joe Smith and Michael Russo wrote:
This is where [Bill Guerin] has to seriously look at who actually wants to be here — and who should be here. There may not be many big names available via trade, but it’s not out of the question for a hockey trade to be made where a veteran on this team is moved. That’ll send more of a jolt than picking up a middle-six or fourth-line forward.
We don't know whether this was Smith and Russo speculating, or if they were hearing it from somewhere, but the two beat writers usually don't put stuff out there without some smoke behind it. And indeed, while we haven't heard of veterans being shopped, Russo reported on Tuesday's Worst Seats in the House podcast that he believes Guerin has called in on a potential trade for Toronto Maple Leafs forward Nick Robertson.
If Guerin needs to move someone to shake things up, it shouldn't be too hard. Teams have dollars to spend with the rising cap, and a top-nine forward or a regular defenseman is always in demand for NHL squads.
There's just one problem: Who can they move?
Go to the Wild's PuckPedia page, and you're gonna see a lot of anchors and a lot of shields. Those are the players who have No-Move and/or No-Trade protections in their contracts. These aren't all bulletproof protections, and we'll break those down in a moment. Still, the Wild are incredibly restricted as to what they can or can't do to shake up their room.
The two most obvious candidates, based on their early-season play, have the tightest restrictions. Jake Middleton ($4.35 million cap hit, minus-0.8 Standings Points Above Replacement) and Marcus Foligno ($4 million AAV, minus-0.9 SPAR) both have full-NMCs. That's total and complete control over where they'd go — or whether they'd go. Even if they were willing to move, Middleton's contract would be difficult to trade to another team, given its term (the first of four years) and his play.
The three other full NMCs on the team make no sense to trade. Mats Zuccarello's injury makes it impossible to trade anyway, and besides, the Wild are missing his offense and leadership, and are depending on his return to right the ship. Kirill Kaprizov and Filip Gustavsson have combined for $170 million in extensions in the past five weeks.
Right there, that's about a quarter of Minnesota's NHL roster that's completely immobile.
So what about the No-Trade Clauses? The Wild have four of these players, and none of them has final say over where they go. That's important because years ago, Guerin showed with the Eric Staal trade that he's not afraid to be aggressive in finding a team that slips off a no-trade list. These players are:
- Ryan Hartman ($4M AAV; UFA 2027), 15-team No-Trade Clause
- Jared Spurgeon ($7.58M AAV; UFA 2027), 10-team No-Trade Clause
- Joel Eriksson Ek (5.25M AAV; UFA 2029), 10-team No-Trade Clause
- Vladimir Tarasenko ($4.75M AAV; UFA 2026), 8-team No-Trade Clause
In theory, everyone on this list should have a taker, even when dealing with a pool of 17, 22, or 24 teams. Tarasenko can at least be a power-play specialist. Despite Hartman's antics, he's a useful, gritty, top-nine forward. Spurgeon is a 20-minute-a-night right-shot defenseman. Eriksson Ek as a third-line center would be an incredible luxury for a loaded Stanley Cup Contender. But to what benefit?
Immediately, cross off Tarasenko as a shake-up move. A big name getting moved out might look attention-grabbing on the surface, but Tarasenko has been in Minnesota for 13 games. Is that going to rock a locker room, or would a Central Division basement dweller offloading a pending UFA be met with a shrug? The latter feels like the best guess.
Both Spurgeon and Eriksson Ek have had relatively slow starts, but both feel too important to the team's fabric to move. John Hynes gave Spurgeon's players-only meeting at least some credit for Minnesota responding against Vancouver, and it sounds like the captain still has a handle on the locker room. Besides, the team doesn't seem prepared to give his 21 minutes a night to David Jiříček. As for Joel Eriksson Ek, the team is looking to get help for their do-it-all center, not deplete their center depth.
Hartman makes the most sense to trade out of this group. He's got the longevity, having been there for seven years, which would make for a legitimate shake-up. But of the 17 teams he'd go to, how many of them would fear his disciplinary problems arising again? It'd have to be a few, at least. And whatever you want to say about him, he's a center with 36 shots on goal, fourth on the team. Can Minnesota spare that offense now?
Now, for the players with no protections whatsoever. It'd feel short-sighted to move out established Under-25 players like Matt Boldy, Marco Rossi, or Brock Faber, even if that would constitute a jolt to the locker room. Presumably, anyone younger wouldn't have the clout in the locker room to send significant ripple effects. As for older players, both Zach Bogosian and Nico Sturm are injured and can't be traded.
So now we're left with... three names. Yakov Trenin, Marcus Johansson, and Jonas Brodin.
We see similar pitfalls to these three names as we do for the rest of the team. Trenin's contract ($3.5M AAV, UFA 2028) is a huge damper on his trade value. Johansson is a pending UFA who's one of the few forwards who are actually producing. Brodin has been with the organization since 2011, but is also the Wild's most valuable defenseman this year. He'd get interest on the market, for sure, but flipping him wouldn't constitute a shake-up. It'd be waving the white flag on the season.
Maybe Guerin can surprise and find a way to add to the team without taking much else away. But from where the contracts stand, Minnesota is in a trade market purgatory. Their most sparable assets are either locked in to the Wild, or too unproductive/expensive to trade. Their most movable players are too integral to the team, or too young to make sense to ship out. If a shock to the system is needed to save the season, it's hard to see how the Wild can meaningfully deviate from the status quo.
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