With under a month until the NHL trade deadline arrives, winds from the rumor mill continue to blow through St. Paul and fuel speculation about the Minnesota Wild. Bill Guerin's attention might be focused on Milan and the Olympics, but there's a pretty big pending order of business he'll need to pivot back to once things wrap up in Italy.
Or will he?
It's been rumored for months now that the Wild have at least one more splashy trade up their sleeve, leading to all sorts of rumblings. A very specific need Minnesota has is finding a top-line center to complement Joel Eriksson Ek, something that is widely understood to be a missing piece for a Stanley Cup-caliber roster.
While it goes without saying the Wild need to do something to polish off the roster, it might be a case where a little bit of a wait could be worth it. It's a bit of a risk, but here's what the Wild should probably do: wait until the summer to make the next splashy trade.
Wild might be best off waiting to make their next big trade until the summer
Let's be clear, the Wild absolutely should still make a trade before the deadline but they don't need to pull the trigger on the sequel to the Quinn Hughes deal until later.
So much has been made in the aftermath of that blockbuster about the Wild flipping valuable assets to land their desired centerpiece now, but that might not be the best move. Minnesota can no doubt land a player who would put them as close to Stanley Cup seriousness as we've seen recently, but the idea behind waiting until the summer would be that the Wild can likely land an even better piece with the assets they have.
Trading for Hughes cost a lot, but Minnesota still has some great pieces to potentially flip. Packaging a deal around any combination of Charlie Stramel, Jesper Wallstedt, David Jiricek, and the team's 2027 first-round pick will land them a big fish but more players will be available in the summer than what the Wild can choose from now.
It's not an easy sell to go from pulling off the Hughes trade to urging patience, but this is a long game the Wild are in. There's a ticking clock on Guerin getting a top roster locked in to convince Hughes to re-sign, but the runway extends to next offseason.
Holding onto those top assets through the deadline would allow the Wild to trade for a cheaper middle-six center stopgap in the short term while also landing another star in a splashy move this summer.
It's a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too situation for Guerin, who has a chance to pull off something even better than we're imagining if he shows a little patience.