video from TSN’s #InsiderTrading Feature and TSN Insider Darren Dreger, Minnesota Wild GM Bill Guerin is looking to acquire a center:
“You’ve got a rookie GM in Bill Guerin, who is now the GM of the Minnesota Wild and, he’s willing to be aggressive but he’s also a realist. He wants a top center or a 2nd line center. How do you acquire that piece? The Wild have an abundance of wingers. They’ve got a good draft pile in terms of prospects and…they also have a good picks list as well so he’s willing to use all of that as bait but, again, he’s also careful in knowing that the market just doesn’t throw a player like that out there.”
That’s basically word for word what TSN Insider Darren Dreger said about Wild General Manager, Bill Guerin. The part of the video about the Minnesota Wild starts at about 1:45.
So…the question then is, how badly do they want/need a top center?
Eric Staal is currently their #1 center and he just signed a 2-year extension last season that goes through the 2020-21 Season. They have Captain Mikko Koivu, who’s coming off a torn ACL and is penciled in as the 3rd-line center. They’ve been experimenting with F Ryan Donato as the 2nd-line center and F Joel Eriksson Ek is probably the 4th-line center on paper.
They also have a few guys who are centers or have played center before in their careers:
There’s Victor Rask, who was acquired for F Nino Niederreiter partly because former GM Paul Fenton wanted more depth at center. So far, that hasn’t worked out well but Rask’s contract is tough to move and/or pay to have him in the AHL so…what does that mean for him? If they wanted to trade him, they might have to sweeten the deal with a pick or prospect because it’s hard to imagine a team would want his contract. Maybe a team who’s in rebuilding or development mode would take him as a way to get to the cap limit? It’s hard to know right now if a team like that exists.
They also have Fs Luke Kunin, Jordan Greenway & Nico Sturm. Kunin has played a lot of center already in his Wild career so he’s able at that position. Greenway played a little center last season. Nico Sturm is a center and is still fighting for a roster spot but, he’s a young center who has only played 2 games so far and he maybe wasn’t considered a Top 6 center. He’s known as a defensively responsible center who has a great motor who will play the right way and probably get some points.
If they are in a bind, Kunin would be the first choice to move to the middle in our opinion. He’s pretty much already made the team and he’s been developing well after having to rehab from his own torn ACL last offseason.
Are any of them a Top 6 center right now? Well, if Bill Guerin is looking for one, he obviously doesn’t think so but, is he looking for one right now and does that mean he doesn’t think any of his players are ready to be the 1st or 2nd-line center for the Wild?
And, still, another question is how much should we believe the rumors from these insiders? Is it really he’s looking to acquire a center or is it more like Bill Guerin knows they have more forwards than they have room for on the NHL roster? Or have other NHL GMs shown interest in some of them and that’s what his response for what he wants back?
Do the Minnesota Wild have what it takes to acquire a Top-6 Center right now? We assume that would take a mixture of maybe an NHL Player, a Prospect or two and/or some Draft Picks.
The Wild have drafted better in the last couple of seasons but most of those players are very early in the development process to be considered top prospects just yet. For instance, The Athletic did a Top 124 Prospects Entering the 2019-20 Season List (Subscription Required and Highly Recommended) and the Wild had 2 players on it! TWO! That’s it! They are F Matthew Boldy, their most recent 1st-round draft pick, and F Kirill Kaprizov, who they weren’t as high on as most Minnesota Wild fans.
The Athletic also did a ranking of NHL Farm Systems and the Wild came in at #22. They were ranked #18 last season and were given a B for their 2019 Draft. The first center in their farm system prospect rankings is at #3 and it’s C Alexander Khovanov and they have him listed as a “Legit NHL Prospect.” They describe a Legit NHL Prospect as a player who “Projects to be a full-time NHL player in the bottom half of a roster.” That is obviously not a Top-6 center. Nico Sturm is the 4th-ranked player but he’s also listed as a “Legit NHL Prospect” so…do the Wild have enough to acquire a Top-6 Center right now? It appears they might be a little shy of what it would take to do that but it also depends on what the other teams want in a trade. If they are looking for defense, the Wild might be able to work out a deal.
So, we’ll see if anything happens on the trade front for the Minnesota Wild.
We’ll look at some young centers the Wild might be looking at, too, and then update this post. We did some posts on the Wild quest for goal-scorers in our Chasing Goals series.
We will see Victor Rask play in tonight’s Wild preseason game. Will that shed a light on these rumors? We’ll see. He has to have a really good game to show he’s progressed from his terrible 2018-19 season or who knows where he could end up?
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