By Thomas Williams -
The Minnesota Wild have made their largest acquisition of the offseason, acquiring a Russian winger who might be on his last legs.
Announced by the team Monday afternoon, the Wild have acquired Vladimir Tarasenko from the Detroit Red Wings.
What did they have to give up? Absolutely nothing.
Of course, there is a reason for this. Tarasenko has one year remaining on his contract that carries a $4.75-million AAV. The Red Wings aim to make the playoffs for the first time since the 2015-16 season, but they failed to do so last year after another disappointing season was marred by Steve Yzerman's veteran signings that limited the team's ceiling.
They also gave away Tarasenko for free.
The 33-year-old Russian winger scored 11 goals and 33 points in 80 games for the Red Wings last season while averaging just 14:47 TOI. Tarasenko's most common linemates were the combination of J.T. Compher and Jonatan Berggren -- not the most star-studded cast to try to get him the puck to unleash his gifted shot.
After adding Tarasenko and his contract, the Wild now have approximately $12.9 million in cap space with 11 forwards, seven defensemen (that includes Jonas Brodin, who will miss the start of the season), and two goaltenders signed. If they re-sign restricted free agent Marco Rossi instead of trading him, that will result in a full lineup's worth of players and still leave some substantial cap space.
This trade makes sense for the Wild to potentially add some goals and bet enough on their overall defensive structure and responsible players, while also addressing a significant lack of defensive effort with a pure goalscorer. While scoring only 11 goals is a little worrisome, Tarasenko had one of the worst shooting percentages of his career at 8.3 percent.
It was just last season where, after the Florida Panthers acquired Tarasenko at the deadline, he popped off for six goals and 14 points in 19 games to close out the year before a playoff appearance, where he put five in the back of the net in 24 games as a depth scorer.
Just a day before the floodgates of free agency opens, the Wild take on a slight reclamation project to maybe squeeze more goals from.
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