My concern is that the Wild will continue to not learn the lesson Vegas just showed the entire league: you can't be afraid to make a move, because if the move didn't work, you can just move on from it and try something else. Every time the league has a player who either is or could be a #1 center available, the Wild are always too gunshy to pull the trigger and I wish just once they would.

as it stands well have about $20M in cap space next year. and with Ohgren, Khusnutdinov, and Yurov expected to come over on their rookie deals, we have space to make a huge move.

20M in cap space, need to sign 8 forwards, 3 defensemen and 2 goalies

Let's say you give Lindholm 8M, and let's pretend all three of those guys make the roster out of the gate.

You've got 10M left to sign 4 forwards, 3 defensemen and 2 goalies at an average of 1M per spot if you wanna have any kind of space for call ups.

Not every team is in the same boat Vegas was when they traded for Eichel, and not every center that becomes available is as good as Eichel is. That's a legitimate top 10 center in the league and Vegas was already on the doorstep of a Cup. The Wild are not there and Lindholm is not that. It doesn't make sense to trade multiple top prospects and 1sts for him.

On top of that Eichel was like 24 with 5 years of term left. Lindholm is 29 with one year. If it doesn't work out and Lindholm doesn't sign, you can't just move on and try again.

with Duhaime and shaw expected under a mil. Zuccarello resigns on a discount. Maybe Daemon Hunt/Lambos makes the jump. Wallstedts rookie year as a backup to Gus. We could still even have 5M with cap to start the season or sign another player. Guerin knows what he's doing. We have a 3 year cup window with Kirill and it starts now.

Wait you want Zuccarello to come back too? You think he's taking 1M or less?

Let's call it 3M for Zuccarello, now you've got 7M to sign those 3 forwards, 3 defensemen and 2 goalies. Even at 900k a pop for those ELCs you have run out of cap space.

do you want me to post a thread resigning Lindholm. Make a team signing him at 8-8.5 next year. With the cap expected to go up to 86.5. Its easily doable.

I'd ask you to if I thought you could be realistic about it.

But you already have half the roster on ELCs. What has Guerin done here that makes you think he's okay with gifting guys on ELCs roster spots full time? Marco Rossi couldn't even make the team this year, you have Khustnudinov, Yurov, Ohgren, Lambos, Hunt, Wallstedt, Faber at the very least doing it next year to make your roster work. You still don't have a starting goalie.

posted

You just proved my point, you can only do it if you have several rookies and the cap jumps up 3M. Just because it's possible doesn't mean it's realistic.

Khusnutdinov will have played 3 years in the KHL. He should be ready to make the jump. Even if Yurov and Ohgren aren't ready, there's still cap for other players to play instead. I don't even have Beckman and Walker resigned in that ACGM either. With 3.3M in cap space leftover.

I don’t trade for him with futures, period.

You are acting like Lindholm is Crosby in his prime…he’s not even close!

And because they gave up so much to get him, they will justify it/be held over a barrel by his agent by signing him to an 8 year deal…and most likely regret it 3-4 years later.

I'm trying to think of players like Lindholm that have come around in the last 5ish years and so far I have

Lindholm himself, again
Dubois (twice)
O'Reilly
Pavelski
JT Miller
Sam Reinhart
Kadri
Horvat
Brayden Schenn
Trochek

Yep…and strong arguments can be made that none of those guys are #1 centers either.

I wouldn't even listen to any arguments saying any of those guys are #1 centers, they're just flat out not

and how many of these guys would make the wild drastically stronger?

Do you think it made the team drastically stronger when they traded Fiala for Faber and a 1st?

It depends on what we had to give up to get the player, how much his next contract would cost, how well the contract aged, etc, etc, etc. There is SOOO much more to think about in a trade than just today. Now, if the Wild were truly one Elias Lindholm from contending for the Cup…then maybe…even probably…but that is nowhere near where the Wild are for at least 2 more years! And, it is reasonable to fear that Lindholm would start his decline at about the same time the Wild are legit contenders. How will that $8m x 8 year contract look then?

This is the key. All of it.

Thanks! I added to it too.

I wanted to keep Fiala too. But don't act like you don't know why that trade needed to happen. You could also argue that Faber was more effective than Fiala in the playoffs for us already. And who played in more playoff games this year?

It's a great point. He'll be 30 in the first year of his new contract. The Wild are building towards a future AFTER the buyouts when guys like Rossi, Khusnutdinov, Boldy, Faber, Lambos, Ohgren, Wallstedt, etc are all in their primes. That's at least 4-5 years away, which means Lindholm is AT LEAST 33-34. You don't win Cups by having contracts like that on the books. It's all about getting good value out of the money you're spending, and 8M for a 33-34+ year old Lindholm isn't a good value.

It's why I bring up the Fiala trade. Had we signed him to an 8 year contract, he'd still only be 29-30 in that time frame, and they already decided it wasn't worth it, so it's clearly not all about getting better in the next couple of years, their focus is beyond that.

It's why Vegas and Eichel doesn't make sense to bring up as a comp for us. Vegas had proven to be on the cusp of a championship with a few tweaks. They needed that 1C because they had the rest of the pieces and they were knocking on the door without him. We're not there.

Too many people are way too short sighted. You can't build a Cup contender overnight by simply overpaying for the best person available. You have to actually make sure he's going to be a good value and the timing lines up.

In 3-4 years if we're still a 1C away, but we've made a couple deep runs to the conference finals, then we can talk about trading a couple 1sts or top prospects for a center, but we're not there yet. It's just impatience. They even said themselves their reasoning for this is because they're sick of losing in the first round. We ALL are sick of losing in the first round, but you don't get a trophy for winning round one. Let's have some patience and do it right.

Fiala had 6 points in his 3 games and was injured for part of the series, I really don't think this is the road you want to go down.

The point isn't about whether Faber or Fiala is a better player, we all know it's Fiala. The point is that it's not all about getting better on the ice right now. There is nuance to this that you are completely ignoring because you're too impatient.

As you said, I know why they made that trade, but I'm not sure you do.