Quoting: Paul13
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