Difficult decisions for the Wild
Brian Murphy of the Pioneer Press: Minnesota Wild GM Paul Fenton said they are still in the playoff race and will gauge their next couple games then decide which way to go.
“If it comes down to a difficult decision come Monday, then I’ll make the difficult decision,” Fenton said.
Pending free agent center Eric Staal could be made available. Staal has said there have been no contract extension talks.
Michael Russo: GM Fenton on the approaching trade deadline: “We’re still in the playoffs so if I wanted to tell you one way or another, I couldn’t. I’m looking at tonight, I’m looking at a number of games, seeing how we do and then kind of gauging what our team looks like out there.”
Michael Russo: Fenton continued: “I’m trying to let them sort this out more than anything. Am I making phone calls? I’m guaranteeing you I’m making phone calls, receiving phone calls, entertaining phone calls. That’s just the seat that I’m sitting in right now. ”
Wild trade bait
Chris Nichols and Nichols on Hockey: Elliotte Friedman on NHL Network was asked if the Minnesota Wild will be sellers. Friedman has heard they could be, with one name out there being Eric Staal.
“The one thing about Eric Staal is Staal has some control over his movement. The rumor is that he hasn’t exactly… he’s not going to make it easy in terms of where they could move him. Some of the teams that Minnesota might try to move him to, he might make it hard for them to be on his list. I think Eric Staal really likes it in Minnesota, so I think that that situation is not going to be easy to move him as much as maybe Minnesota would like.”
Another player of potential interest could be Jason Zucker.
Charlie Coyle has been in the rumor mill for the past could years can could get some interest.
At different points, teams like both Boston and Tampa Bay have shown interest in him. I think the biggest difficulty is Minnesota has always asked a lot for him, and teams haven’t been willing to go that way, but they like Coyle as a player. So I think that’s going to all come down to asking price.”