Wild sign center Frederick Gaudreau

The Minnesota Wild have signed their second contract of the day, locking up forward Frederick Gaudreau to a two-year deal with a $1.2-million AAV.

Most recently, the 28-year-old was in the Pittsburgh Penguins organization, bouncing in between the NHL roster, the taxi squad, and the AHL. Through his 19 NHL appearances, the center spent most of his time on a line with Sam Lafferty and Zach Aston-Reese, earning his way to scoring 2 goals and 10 points. For the AHL Penguins, he scored four points in six games.

Not the center we all want to headline the Wild’s lineup, but as a replacement for the depth they lost as Nick Bonino makes his way to the San Jose Sharks and Zach Parise goes somewhere (probably Long Island), the team could have done much worse than betting on Gaudreau to have some consistency.

Minnesota is still probably not done, as they need to still wrangle up a couple of depth defenseman to replace the loss of Carson Soucy and Ian Cole. But they did manage to sign Alex Goligoski to a one-year deal earlier on Wednesday.

GM Billy G is a man on a mission.