Minnesota Wild: Expansion Draft Complicates Possible Defensive Trades

Many have contended that despite not trading a defenseman for a forward this offseason that the Minnesota Wild will still be in the market for that trade this season.  But with the looming expansion draft that might not be a good idea.

One, if not the biggest, factors that is effecting the Minnesota Wild planning out their future is the looming expansion draft next summer.  The Wild no doubt now are thinking almost daily of all the possibilities and trying to figure exactly who Vegas GM George McPhee and his staff will want to pluck from the Wild roster, as it has massive implications on possible roster moves that could be worked this season.

Michael Russo on his latest edition of the Russo-Souhan Show explained that during his recent trip to Las Vegas to visit with McPhee, he discovered that the Vegas font office would be doing mock expansion drafts monthly over the next year to get ready for their expansion draft.  That says to me when the time rolls around they’ll have no doubt which player they want to take from the Wild no matter whom they protect.

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That being said the early predictions are that the Wild will most likely lose one of their talented defenders.  Indications from Chuck Fletcher is that the Wild will be looking to use the protection option that protects seven forwards, three defensemen, and one goalie, vice the option to protect eight skaters of any mixture and one goaltender.  With the way things will more than likely play out under that construct the Wild will need to expose at least two of their marque defenders.

As you might know by now the rules say to a player with a no-movement clause like Ryan Suter must be protected, so there’s one spot.  The next spot belongs to Jared Spurgeon, and after that the Wild will be hard pressed to pick between Marco Scandella, Matt Dumba, and Jonas Brodin.  This makes for a situation where the Wild will be exposing two of their big defensive pieces.

Now let’s add another factor into the mix that would be the trade of one of these three defenders during the season.  You can see that trade in addition to the selection of one of them by Las Vegas could mean the Wild lose two defenders by July of next offseason.  That could be bad considering the Wild have such a heavy free-agent load already developing for next offseason.

The ability to backfill one defender effectively is easy, but if the Wild loose two that could be a lot harder.  Sure Reilly will be ready and Olofsson could be ready as well, but that still leaves them on a bit of shaky untested ground as one of them would possibly need to be played as a second pairing defender.  Add to that that Prosser is most likely gone next season, and Folin will need a new RFA deal you can see how the defensive situation could be bad next off season.

What this really means is that the Wild will need to think twice about trading any defenseman during this season.  The expectation still seems to be out there that the Wild will trade a one of these three defensemen for more scoring, but can they afford to do it without hurting their long-term personnel goals?

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Sure Las Vegas could take a forward and nullify this entire argument, but logically the defensive group available from the Wild will be better than the forward group.  McPhee and his staff will figure that out as they wargame out the draft.  They’ll look to get their forwards from other teams who are weak on defense because the players they will likely expose defensive wise will not be as talented as the Wild’s exposed group of defenders.

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In the end though the Wild have to be looking to be more cautious this season about who they move and for what price.  The x-factor of the expansion draft complicates the defensive outlook of this team, and forces the Wild to understand that if they trade one of these defender they could be looking at loosing up two second pairing ready defenders.   That could hurt big time as the Wild might be turning around to buy a defender very soon after selling one off.  It’s certainly something to think about as the Wild go on this season.