According to The Star Tribune's Sarah McLellan the Wild have extended qualifying offers to RFAs Matt Dumba, Jason Zucker and Nick Seeler. Ryan Murphy was another RFA, but it appears he close to signing a new one year deal.
Glad to see that Murphy will be back to compete for a roster spot as he filled in admirably for Jared Spurgeon duringhis two lengthy stays on the DL this past season. Murphy has the tools to be a regular in the NHL. He skates extremely well, always plays with his head up and has a very underrated shot from the point.
This should be an interesting week for Paul Fenton as he works to upgrade the Wild roster heading into free agency.
It has been reported that Fenton has been in on talks with multiple clubs, in an attempt to make a deal. We all know the names that have been bandied about being Zucker, Niederreiter, and Coyle primarily. But as a caveat to those trades, Fenton has been trying to work Tyler Ennis into the framework of the deal.
That may work in a perfect scenario, but obviously including a liability as part of any trade devalues the other assets that are being included. Hopefully Fenton see this and is able to make the hockey trade or trades necessary to get this team headed in the right direction.
Freeing up cap space is important for sure but there are deals to be made that can accomplish this without forcing things and settling for a subpar return.
Going back to the weekend and Paul Fenton's first draft. After round one the Wild selected 7 more players to add organizational depth.
The two most notable were 3rd round picks Jack McBain, the son of former NHLer Andrew McBain (former Fenton teammate) and Alexander Khovanov. Both McBain and Khovanov were originally slated to go much higher but a poor second half by McBain and season derailing illness to Khovanov sealed borh of their fates as mid-round selections.
These two players could very well turn out to be diamonds in the rough with some better conditioning for both now that they have been drafted by the Wild. I do not know much about either player other than what I have read, but foot speed is a bit of a questionmark with both players.
The word on McBain who is 6'3" and by all accounts a 200 foot player who patterns his game after Ryan Getzlaf, but by no means is he of that caliber. Khovanov is a wild card by all accounts as he contracted Hepatitis A last year and suffered the ill affects for the entire season.
Khovanov is a playmaker with the ability to slow the game down around him, which is an asset that one cannot put a pricetag on. If Khovanov can return to full health over the Summer and come to camp in shape, who knows were this kid could go. A solid pick where the Wild drafted Khovanov and who knows we may be talking about the Fenton innaugural draft a little more glowingly than we did after his first selection.
Time will of course tell on all of these players, but for now Fenton's focus is on the immediate future of his NHL roster.
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