By Thomas Williams -
After trading for Gustav Nyquist last week, the Minnesota Wild have again dipped their toes in the trade waters hours before Friday afternoon's trade deadline.
The Wild have acquired 6-foot-5 winger Justin Brazeau from the Boston Bruins. In exchange, they are sending back young center Marat Khusnutdinov, pending unrestricted free agent Jakub Lauko, and a 2026 sixth-round pick.
Brazeau is 27 years old and will be an unrestricted free agent this summer, but you have to imagine that the Wild will be interested in re-signing the player before he hits the open market if he gets off to a good start in St. Paul. He has a massive body and can move around the ice well enough for a forward of his size.
Through 57 NHL games this year, his first full season up in the National, Brazeau has scored 10 goals and 20 points. Not bad at all for a player averaging fewer than 13 minutes a night on a mediocre Bruins team. If he can provide some offensive juice to a Minnesota bottom-six forward group that is certifiably juiceless, then it is a move that is no doubt a winner.
Going the other way, Khusnutdinov is a player who might still have way more to show. The Wild thrust their former second-round pick right into the NHL after coming overseas from the KHL towards the end of last season and never showed any offensive jump. Essentially, he was and still is a young player who has been cemented as a bottom-six center and never anything more than that. In 57 games this season, Khusnutdinov has scored two goals and seven points.
The Wild are also letting Jakub Lauko return home to Boston. The Bruins traded him to Minnesota last June, and just months away from free agency, he gets to play for them again. He almost certainly would not be staying with the Wild as he has battled injuries this season and never really gained footing in St. Paul.
So it's a prospect who the Wild might be selling as high as they can on before he either crumbles back to not even being worth a roster spot (or he can also pop off in a different system with more focus on development and have him play actual AHL games) -- all for a pending free agent who the Wild will get a first look on and try to re-sign before the end of the season.
It might be an inconsequential move, but it is the dice roll that the Wild currently need to make. With almost no cap room, getting Brazeau and his league-minimum contract for a player who can certainly score more goals than the player you are giving up is the low-commitment gamble that a team fighting for security in the standings can make.
If nothing goes well, the Wild sent a player who did not fulfill his hype to Boston and gained a roster spot they can give to a different promising center like Danila Yurov, Hunter Haight, or anyone else willing to win the battle next training camp.
All in all, not too shabby.
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