Wild trade Victor Rask to Kraken

Despite the NHL Trade Deadline technically being at 2:00 p.m. on Monday, the deals start to trickle in and get finalized way beyond that hour. Sometimes it is just minutes beyond the deadline, getting the final details all finalized, but apparently in the year of 2022, that idea goes completely out the window and there were still trades coming hours after.

And one of those deals was the Minnesota Wild sending out Victor Rask to the Seattle Kraken for future considerations.

Rask was playing for the AHL Iowa Wild for the past few weeks or so, after clearing waivers for the second time this season and being sent down. The Wild had no need for him to play at the NHL level after rookies like Connor Dewar and Brandon Duhaime have made their spot a more permanent one, so this is simply a move just to clear out a contract and give a player that has been on this team for a good amount of time, a chance to finish out his contract actually playing in the NHL.

Minnesota will be retaining half of Rask’s total salary of $4 million, so the Wild will still have a $975,000 cap hit, since his contract was in the minors and the maximum buried salary is $1.025 million. Not sure if the math completely works like that, but I guess we’ll get corrected soon enough.

Ever since being acquired in one of the most infamous one-for-one trades in recent NHL history — with Nino Niederreiter being sent to the Carolina Hurricanes — Rask has certainly had his warts of games, but you cannot just hope he gets to continue his career in the top league. Through 149 games in Minnesota, Rask has 22 goals and 52 points.

He will always have the honor of being Kirill Kaprizov’s first center in the NHL.