{"id":254986,"date":"2025-11-01T07:40:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T07:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/254986\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T07:40:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T07:40:07","slug":"wild-believed-to-be-looking-to-add-a-middle-six-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/254986\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild Believed To Be Looking To Add A Middle-Six Forward"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heading into last offseason, there was an expectation that the Wild would be busy with much more salary cap space at their disposal.\u00a0 Instead, their spending was relatively tempered, headlined by the additions of winger Vladimir Tarasenko<\/a> and center Nico Sturm<\/a>.\u00a0 They also re-signed center Marco Rossi<\/a> to a bridge deal after a prolonged period of trade speculation.\u00a0 The end result was them entering the season with much more cap space than they\u2019ve been accustomed to.<\/p>\n

At the moment, Minnesota has over $4.2MM in cap space, per PuckPedia<\/a>.\u00a0 That amount is lowered a bit by the fact that they have 15 forwards counting against their cap thanks to injuries to Sturm and winger Mats Zuccarello<\/a>, neither of whom have played this season.<\/p>\n

It appears they\u2019re looking to put that cap flexibility to use sooner than later.\u00a0 Anthony DiMarco of The Fourth Period reports<\/a> that Minnesota is believed to be looking to add a middle-six forward.\u00a0 While they\u2019ve been known to be coveting center help for several years now, they\u2019re not limiting their search to just that position; they\u2019re open to adding on the wing as well.<\/p>\n

Entering play tonight, the Wild sit 21st in the NHL in goals scored despite having three forwards (Kirill Kaprizov<\/a>, Matt Boldy<\/a>, and Rossi) all averaging at least a point per game.\u00a0 While that line is producing, they\u2019re not getting a ton of help elsewhere.\u00a0 Tarasenko has only scored once, Joel Eriksson Ek<\/a> has just two goals, and Marcus Foligno<\/a> is still looking for his first point of the season.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, it makes sense that GM Bill Guerin appears to be looking at what might be out there on the trade front.\u00a0 On top of having some struggling veterans, top prospects Danila Yurov<\/a> and Liam Ohgren<\/a> have seen very limited playing time; it might be more beneficial for their development to play a bigger role with AHL Iowa over fourth-line ice time in Minnesota.\u00a0 Adding a middle-six forward could push one of them off the active roster, allowing for that extra playing time to happen while ideally giving their offense a bit of a boost as well.<\/p>\n

Having said that, this is still a little early in the season for teams to start parting with proven talent.\u00a0 While there has been plenty of speculation around players like Nicholas Robertson<\/a> (Toronto) or Yegor Chinakhov<\/a> (Columbus), there\u2019s no guarantee that adding one of them \u2013 or someone like that \u2013 would come in and give their attack the shot in the arm that they\u2019re seeking.\u00a0 But if they\u2019re looking for someone with more of a track record, they may have to wait a while yet before the market really starts to open up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heading into last offseason, there was an expectation that the Wild would be busy with much more salary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254987,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,7524,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-254986","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-minnesota-wild","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254986\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}