With NHL trade deadline looming, should Wild buy or sell?

Left wing Sean Bergenheim’s one goal in a Wild sweater was his lone point in 20 combined regular and postseason games after Minnesota acquired him and a seventh-round pick from the Florida Panthers on Feb. 24, 2015 in exchange for a third-round pick the Panthers used to select Gopher forward Rem Pitlick. (MHM Photo / Jeff Wegge)

Minnesota’s regime of Chuck Fletcher and Brent Flahr have never shied away from adding at the deadline. Last year, the team mortgaged two of their top 2017 draft picks to land Martin Hanzal. While in past years they’ve acquired such players like Matt Moulson, Sean Bergenheim, Ilya Bryzgalov and Jason Pominville. Probably the team’s best move – which wasn’t necessarily at the deadline – was when they acquired Devan Dubnyk from Arizona for a third-round pick and Dubnyk turned out to be a franchise goaltender, with two All-Star appearances since.

With just 26 games remaining in the regular season as of Feb.14 and the Wild in a dog fight for a playoff spot, Minnesota is in peculiar spot. On one hand, the team is in the midst of playing their best hockey of the season. Since the new year, Minnesota has just three regulation losses – 10-3-3 – while posting the best record on home ice – 20-4-2 – in the NHL.

Yet, the team has been so hot-and-cold this season, it’s tough to buy in to their recent sample size of success. They blew a 3-0 lead to the worst team in the league, the Arizona Coyotes, in a Feb. 8 loss and nearly suffered the same fate to the New York Rangers on Feb 13. Although they’ve been phenomenal on home ice, recent road performances against Dallas, Pittsburgh and Colorado in the same stretch leaves you wondering if this current group can make a deep run in the postseason.

Here are three options for the Wild to consider by the time the NHL trade deadline hits on Feb. 28.

1. Stand pat

If I was running the Wild, I would not make any significant moves this month. After suffering a barrage of injuries at the beginning of the season to core players, Minnesota is finally healthy outside of defenseman Jonas Brodin who will be out until March. The team is playing its best hockey of the season and with all the draft picks Minnesota has forfeited over the years, there’s not exactly a lot of future assets for Minnesota to package in a trade.

Dubnyk is playing well, the power play is turning around and players like Zach Parise and Charlie Coyle have had an uptick in their play, which the team desperately needs. Combine that with a generally weak market, it really doesn’t make much sense for the Wild to make add anything at the deadline.

2. Clear some salary cap

Rumors are swirling ahead of this month’s trade deadline about a potential return to Pittsburgh for Wild center Matt Cullen. (MHM Photo / Jonny Watkins

It wouldn’t shock me, however, to see the Wild sell a regular in the lineup for more draft picks and salary cap relief heading into the offseason. With Jason Zucker and Matt Dumba approaching big pay days this summer, Minnesota will need all the cap space they can get. Trading a player like Tyler Ennis could be beneficial for the Wild. Ennis, who was the key piece in a trade with Buffalo last summer that sent Marco Scandella and Pominville to the Sabres, has been disappointment statistically in his first season with the Wild.

Ennis has just 15 points (seven goals and eight assists) in 54 games this season while averaging just under 12 minutes a game. He has a cap hit of $4.6 million this season and is on the books next season for the same amount of dough. If Minnesota is able to obtain a mid-to-low-round pick for Ennis, that would be a win for the franchise in the longterm. The Wild just can not afford to pay a forward nearly $5 million a season to be a 20-point producer in the regular season. Plus, Ennis’ contract could be attractive to a team that’s trying to get the salary cap floor.

Other veterans like Matt Cullen and Chris Stewart have also been scratched on more than one occasion over the last few month. Both players will be free agents this summer and there’s even been some speculation that Cullen could return to the Penguins, according to to the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

3. Get ready for the kids

If the Wild were to move on from Ennis and/or Cullen that would obviously create a void in the lineup which would be an ideal time for young top-tier prospects to get some legitimate playing time such as former first-round picks Joel Eriksson Ek and Luke Kunin. There’s no doubt the organization thinks highly of them and obviously the hope is that one day they will be contributors in the lineup. In addition, Wild prospect Jordan Greenway of Boston University,  currently with Team USA in the Pyeongchang Winter Games, could very well sign with the Wild when the college hockey season ends.

Sure the idea of Dion Phaneuf, Rick Nash or a even a Marian Gaborik reunion sounds like a fun idea, it just doesn’t seem like it’s in the cards for the Wild this season.

If they’re going to make a run at the Stanley Cup, it will likely be with the same core group of players that’s help the State of Hockey’s NHL team reach the postseason in five consecutive seasons.

The post Trade Deadline Primer appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Bergenheim, Stewart ignite the fire as Minnesota roasts the Devils

St. Paul — Goals by newcomers Sean Bergenheim and Chris Stewart 1:19 apart spanning the first and second periods sparked the Wild to a 6-2 win over the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday night before 19,034 at Xcel Energy Center.

The floodgates opened from there with Minnesota scoring twice more in the second and a pair in the third, including two goals from Thomas Vanek (No. 15 and 16 of the year) for his 50th career multi-goal game.

Zach Parise had a pair of assists and Devan Dubnyk was Devan Dubnyk in his 200th NHL game, finishing with 30 saves to raise his record to 28-9-3 overall and 19-4-1 with Minnesota this season.

Dubnyk’s play was especially critical late in the first period when the Devils made a push. But Dubnyk stood tall against a trio of odd-man rushes to keep New Jersey off the board.

“We were really good the first half [of the period] and then they started to take things over,” Minnesota coach Mike Yeo said. “He gave us a chance to settle things down a little bit and grab that lead and that was huge.”

Bergenheim, who was acquired via trade from the Florida Panthers last month, had a solid debut for the Wild against Nashville on Feb. 26 but has struggled as of late. After seeing time on Minnesota’s second and third lines, Bergenheim was dropped to the fourth line alongside Erik Haula and Kyle Brodziak.

“You can look at it as a punishment if you want, but it wasn’t,” Yeo said. “We felt like we were surrounding him with a couple players that would help him play the type of game that he needs to play and he responded really well.

“They were dangerous all night.”

Bergenheim agreed, saying his line could have had a few more goals than his lone tally.

“I think we had good pace and they had some moments where they kind of had a few good chances but, all in all, I think we had a pretty good pace all the way through,” Bergenheim said.

Bergenheim broke the scoreless tie late in the first period scoring his ninth goal of the season, but first in a Wild sweater, with 1:03 remaining on a feed from Kyle Brodziak.

“You always want to see the new guys get that first goal out of the way,” Wild forward Zach Parise said. “It was a great shot. It’s good to see him and Stewart contributing, you want them to feel good about the way they’re playing because they’re helping us out a lot.”

“[The goal] took a little longer than I wanted but the most important thing is, every day, to keep on getting better because we want to be good in the playoffs,” Bergenheim said. “I want to get better and ready for that.”

Stewart made it 2-0 just 13 seconds into the middle frame with his second goal for the Wild and 13th overall.

“To get that one right away, I think that hurt them a lot and then after that we were able to just keep going,” Parise said. “But it was a good start to that second period that was the big difference.”

It was the second goal in two games for Stewart, who added an assist against the Devils to pick up his first multi-point game with the Wild and 62nd of his career. He now has four points (2-2–4) in five games since his March 2 acquisition from the Buffalo Sabres for a 2017 second-round draft pick.

“I think that’s Stewart’s best game that he’s played with us,” Yeo said. “I thought that he was really good and, I’ve said it a number of times, I’ve really liked the way that Mikko [Koivu] and he are reading off each other.”

After what had been a fairly even, although wide-open first period (the teams combined for 29 shots), the relatively quick goals lit a fire under the Wild as they pinned the Devils in their zone for long stretches early in the second.

Just 12 seconds after a roughing penalty to New Jersey’s Eric Gelinas expired, Jared Spurgeon’s blast from the right circle beat Devils’ goaltender Cory Schneider for his eighth of the year and a 3-0 Wild lead at 4:23.

In just his second game back from injured reserve, Spurgeon not only scored but assisted on Jason Pominville’s third-period tally and finished plus-3 on the night.

New Jersey’s Dainius Zubrus cut the lead to two midway through the period but less than three minutes later, Vanek pounced on a loose puck near the crease to restore the three-goal cushion at the break.

Pominville’s goal 1:18 into the third sent Schneider to the bench in favor of Keith Kinkaid who allowed Vanek’s second goal when he got a stick on a puck Parise had pushed into the crease and appeared to be on its way in.

Asked if Vanek owes him a goal Parise quipped, “Yeah, I thought so. I celebrated like it was mine and then they announced it was his. I kind of feel like an idiot now.”

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