Minnesota Wild And Nashville Predators: Perfect Trade Partners?
By Luke Ryan
Could Minnesota Wild’s new General Manager, Paul Fenton dip into the market with his former team, the Nashville Predators. And if he did, what might it look like?
It’s not completely ridiculous to think that the new Minnesota Wild GM might go looking for players at his old stomping ground. Though, inter-divisional trades are a bit of a rare thing.
The lack of high-end young talent in the Minnesota system is starting to get quite concerning, especially given the burdens of the Ryan Suter and Zach Parise deals. The size of those deals is only going to get worse as time goes on.
I got to thinking and there’s one name in the Nashville line-up, that whilst not being their most well-known player, could provide significant upside for the Wild. That player being Kevin Fiala.
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The Swiss-born 22-year-old was a 48 point player across 80 games last year, with those points split almost down the middle between goals and assists (23G, 25A).
He has really good play-making abilities for a young player and could easily slot in the top six. He’d definitely bring something a little different to the team.
Here’s where you have to take a leap of faith and think about what Nashville might want in return and whether the Minnesota Wild should give it up.
My thoughts are that offering Eric Staal wouldn’t be a bad idea.
However, no team would be foolish enough to run a straight swap for a player 11 years’ older than the one you’re giving up. Even one that is coming off a 42 goal, 76 point season.
Adding Marcus Foligno or Charlie Coyle, with salary retained might see a deal happen. Though, you’d expect a secondary piece also headed to Minnesota if either of those players were in the mix.
In an ideal world, that extra piece is Niclas Westerholm – adding another Finnish upstart to the Minnesota Wild’s ageing goalie depth chart.
Realistically, I think it’d more likely be a Connor Brickley, Rocco Grimaldi or Frederick Gaudreau type addition to make it a fairer deal.
Could it happen? Maybe.
Will it happen? Unlikely.
Unless of course, Paul Fenton truly knows what buttons to push with his old General Manager buddy in Nashville.
Next. 5 Best Trades in Minnesota Wild History. dark
We can dream of adding some young blood to the Minnesota Wild line-up, but these sorts of trades just don’t seem to occur these days. Especially when the player in question has as much upside as Fiala.
Can’t hurt for Fenton to get on the phone and throw this hypothetical out there though!