Guerin has demolished this team like a bull in a China shop. I now clearly see his plan it hasn't been pretty and next season will be rough but I think most of us know this had to happen.
He brought in a bunch of one year contracts to see what they had left in them and to keep Wild from having to use a bunch of AHL guys. Wild will have tons of cap space next season and with a futile year ahead some nice draft picks.
I think Dumba will be off loaded at or before the trade deadline but if Guerin doesn't get his price he keeps Dumba and Wild protect 8 skaters without losing anything special.
I think he ships out Parise to NY once Lou gets his cap figured out.
Wild will be in good position coming into 2021/2022 season to be competitive again.

A couple of the moves (Donato, Kunin) make sense from the perspective of planning for the expansion draft and going 8 skaters.
-Parise (NMC), Zucc (NMC), JEE, Fiala get protected. That leaves Greenway, Hartman, and Rask as the exposed FWDs. If Greenway takes a big step then buyout Zucc (it's not awful for the 21-22 season) and take his spot.
-Suter (NMC), Spurgeon (NMC), Brodin (NMC), Dumba all get protected. Soucy gets exposed.
-goalie KK gets protected. Stalock gets exposed.

I'm speculating on this:
-Dumba's value must not be where Guerin thinks it should be and his choices are: trade him for less than he wants too, or keep him.
-I don't see a MAF/Stalock trade happening. Too much cap for the 21-22 season and he won't get picked by Seattle. Signing a Lundqvist (or whoever) to a 1 year deal makes more sense if they want to add a goalie.
-Rask gets played in enough games early in the season so he meets the expansion draft requirement for games played. After that number is met then they'll decide if it's back to the pressbox or not.

All the trades have put MN right back to where they were for quality after the Play-ins started, and they added some picks in the process:
-Bonino = Staal (different games, but same quality). Bonino can better cover Zucc's weaknesses in the d-zone better than Staal, and maybe that frees him up in the o-zone more.
-MarJo = Kunin
-Bjugstad = Donato
-goalie KK = Dub
-The d-corps are unchanged

It is nice having a GM that isn’t afraid of shaking up the roster. The old formula has not worked. Might as well try something new.

I'd buy that if Parise, Spurgeon, and Suter weren't still on the team. Guys like Donato and Kunin had weren't part of any old formula, they had less than 150 games played for MN and a decade younger.

Parise I think will still get moved. Suter would take a buyout to dump and his play doesn't warrant that. Spurgeon is a great player, yes his new contract is a bit long but all elite players get stupid long contracts. The only really stupid contract the Wild have is Zuccarello, he is the part that makes lots of other parts not fit.

That's a really good point about Rask playing. I forgot there was a games played requirement. It makes much more sense that Guerin mentioned in that press conference that he wanted Rask to be given more of an opportunity. Looks like Rask needs to suit up for 27 games to meet the 70 games across past two seasons requirement... oof

I now kinda hope Wild trade Soucy during the season as well. It would be a joy for me to see Ron Francis and the Kraken scouting staff looking at the available options on the Wild and just trying to tell bettman they would like to pass.

I'm confused... Why does it matter if Rask can be exposed in expansion? There is no possible way that Seattle would want him anyway. Even without knowing who else is on the official list with him I think it's safe to say that they aren't going to pick Victor Rask. Or did I miss all the games where he was totally lighting it up??

If I remember right teams have to have a certain amount of eligible players to expose.

Yes, this is true. Essentially 2 parts to the expansion: Protection and Exposure. Need to expose enough players and there are minimum game requirements for that.

MArJo, Bjugstad, Bonito, and Foligno are all UFA's at the end of the year. Kaprizov is exempt. Parise and Zucc have NMCs. That leaves Hartman, Greenway, Fiala, JEE, Strum, and Rask for FWDs. Of those JEE, Greenway, Hartman, and Fiala will meet the 40/70 games player requirement. Strum needs 40 games played and Rask needs 27 to qualify as an exposed player.

It wouldn't be hard to imagine MN being out of it at the TDL and dumping Greenway and Hartman for a rental + futures (same as the Kunin trade). So unless you want to be forced to expose JEE or Fiala because of the games played requirement you need to get Rask into 27 games, or Strum into 40 games next year. This is for protecting 8/1 players.

If you say trade Dumba for a FWD MN can go 7/3/1 and protect all of the FWDs with ease PArise, Zucc, FWD from Dumba trade, JEE, Fiala, Greenway, Hartman. Then leave Strum/Rask available to SEA, as long as the meet the games player requirement.

Edit* All teams need expose 2 FWDs and 1 d-man that meet the 40/70 requirement and are either RFAs or under contact for the 21-22 season. 1 goalie is also required, but there is no games played requirement for them, just be a RFA or under contract for the 21-22 season.

Guessing part of Dumba is some teams still probably think they have a shot at Pietrangelo and if they can make the cap work, that's better than giving up an asset for Dumba.

I've also been thinking Dumba won't be traded after her made that speech to open the Playins, because of the perception of things with the riots that happened in the Cities. It's a bad image for the team to have the racial unrest in the area, and then trade the new face of the NHL's racial equality.

Unless the trade is a clear win of a trade it'll look like he got the Kapernick treatment for speaking up about things. Or that's the way the it could be spun/perceived it if people wanted too. Right or wrong that's the world we're living in right now.