The Minnesota Wild made it clear Sunday that they were ready to go all in and make a run for the Stanley Cup by making a trade with the Arizona Coyotes for veteran center Martin Hanzal.
Minnesota Wild
According to the official statement on NHL.com, the trade sent Martin Hanzal, Ryan White, and a 2017 fourth-round entry draft pick to the State of Hockey in exchange for Minnesota’s 2017 entry draft first-round pick, second-round pick in 2018, and a conditional fourth-round pick in 2019’s draft. Grayson Downing of the Iowa Wild was also sent to Arizona. The Coyotes organization will retain 50 percent of Martin Hanzal’s salary.
For more breakdown on the logistics of the trade and the statistics and summaries of Hanzal and White, check out this article from NHL.com.
Many Wild fans took to Twitter to express their thoughts on the Wild’s new acquisitions. One of the most popular concerns expressed was the Wild giving up too much. But if you dig a little deeper, you’ll see that isn’t the case.
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In the past, the Wild made trades to build for the future, but this season they’re not worried about the future. The trade was a statement from General Manager Chuck Fletcher and the Minnesota Wild that the team believes it has what it takes to win the Stanley Cup. The addition of Hanzal and subtraction of three draft picks reiterates the Cup mentality that’s in the locker room and organization.
The 2018 Entry Draft is anticipated to be a much weaker draft than the previous few drafts, which gave the NHL players like Jack Eichel, Connor McDavid, Auston Matthews, and Patrik Laine. This is a big reason Minnesota Wild management felt it could expose a few of its picks.
Additionally, Minnesota’s current pool of prospects has an abundance of talent: Joel Eriksson Ek, Kirill Kaprizov, Jordan Greenway, Alex Tuch, Luke Kunin, Mike Reilly and Gustav Olofsson give the Wild a bright future, again allowing Minnesota to trade away a few of their draft picks.
Another worry expressed by many Wild fans was Martin Hanzal being washed up. Their reasoning lying within his current stat line of 16 goals, 10 assists, 26 points, a -15 rating, and 43 penalty minutes. But as Kare11 sports anchor Dave Schwartz pointed out, the Wild have a knack for finding players with gas left in the tank.
Just remember folks...People who say Hanzal's stats are down or that he's past his prime: Everyone thought Devan Dubnyk was washed up too.
— Dave Schwartz (@Dave_Schwartz) February 27, 2017
On top of Dubnyk, Eric Staal and Nino Niederreiter found new life in Minnesota so let’s not count Martin Hanzal out just yet.
Hanzal, a center, gives the Wild incredible depth down the middle as well with Koivu, Staal, Haula, and Coyle. Hanzal is fantastic in the face-off circle as well. He has won 56 percent of his draws this year which is 10th best in the NHL. Koivu has won 55.2 percent of his faceoffs, Haula 54 percent and Staal 49.9. This gives the Wild four centers in the Top 60 in the league for face-off win percentage.
As noted in this tweet from Dan Rosen, the addition of 6′ 5″ Martin Hanzal gives the Wild threatening size down the middle, which is something the Wild haven’t had much of in the past.
Eric Staal, Mikko Koivu and Martin Hanzal are Wild's top 3 centers. That's a whole lotta size down the middle. Good luck Western Conference.
— Dan Rosen (@drosennhl) February 27, 2017
Ryan White likely finds his role as a wing on the Wild’s fourth line. He’s an agitator who should bring the Wild some gritty depth alongside Chris Stewart. White can also fill in as a center, especially on face-offs on the right side of the ice. Let’s speculate quickly about what the Wild’s lines could end up looking like:
Niederriter-Staal-Coyle
Zucker-Koivu-Granlund
Parise-Hanzal-Pominville
Stewart-Haula-White
Minnesota Wild General Manager gave some of his thoughts on the Wild’s new additions. (Quotes courtesy of a transcript provided by Michael Russo and the Star Tribune.)
On Martin Hanzal:
"He’s a guy that can contribute offensively, he can win face-offs, he can play both specialty teams. We thought he was the top rental forward on the market, if you will.So certainly our goal was to have him play for us and also to keep him away from other teams in the West."
On Ryan White:
"He’s morphed more into a checking, gritty type of player. He’s a player that plays in your bottom six. He competes, he shows up everyday, he’s good around the net, he can make plays, he has scored some goals in this league.Just the versatility, the compete, the grit, he adds some qualities that you need this time of year."
On Giving Up Draft Picks:
"It’s not fun trading picks. I don’t take it lightly. But yet I would much rather keep the prospects we have than trade future picks.I’ve traded a lot of picks over the years and I think it’s tremendous the number of guys we have. So if we could acquire some assets without giving up our top prospects, we were willing to trade picks. We added two guys that we think will help our team.I think our thought is we may as well take a swing and see how far we can go."
On if the Wild will make more trades:
"I’ll have to get with [Director of Hockey Administration] Shep Harder and see where we’re at cap-wise. We have to make sure we have depth coming down the stretch here in case of injuries.I would assume we’re done. We will take a look at things tomorrow, regroup tomorrow, get with the coaches and just continue to look at everything on a day by day basis. We still have two games before the deadline. As we know things can happen.This is certainly the best team we’ve had since I’ve been here. We are kind of anxious to see what that means."
General Managers always seem to duck around that infamous question of “Will you make a trade?” or “Will you make another trade?” and looking at the quotes from Fletcher above, this situation is no different.
Fletcher hinted at depth and Minnesota may still be looking at adding one more player, likely on the defensive end. Some defenseman that could be fits for Minnesota and may be available according to TSN are Brendan Smith of the Detroit Red Wings, Kyle Quincey of the New Jersey Devils, Johnny Oduya of the Dallas Stars, Patrick Wiercioch of the Colorado Avalanche, and Greg Pateryn of the Montreal Canadiens.
More from Wild News
- Defenseman Matt Dumba signs one-year contract with Arizona
- Minnesota Wild reach agreement with Brandon Duhaime on one-year contract
- Minnesota Wild receive mixed grades for picks in NHL Entry Draft
- Minnesota Wild draft heavy on centers and home-state selections
- Minnesota Wild open regular season at home against Stanley Cup Finalist
The biggest factors that will influence if the Wild make a move are cap space, asking price, and whether or not management decides they need more depth. The Wild don’t have a lot a cap space left with the addition of White and Hanzal. Most of the available defenseman have cap hits of $800,000 or more which would put the Wild at or over their salary cap. That means they’d have to trade cap space to acquire someone new–something Fletcher said the team doesn’t want to do.
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The trade deadline is 2 p.m. CST on Wednesday so the fans and everyone else will just have to sit tight and wait to see if the Wild have another trade up their sleeves.