Montreal Canadiens: Hypothetical Habs Trade With Every Central Division Team

Minnesota Wild

The Minnesota Wild are appropriately named as they seem to have been wandering through the wilderness for years. They are always just good enough to get into the playoffs but never good enough to go deep and almost never good enough to even get out of the first round.

Thus, they don’t have a lot of quality top prospects and they have some major holes in their lineup. Their surprise trade of Eric Staal and then apparently allowing Alex Galchenyuk and Mikko Koivu to walk to free agency has left them completely devoid of centre ice talent.

They locked up defenceman Jonas Brodin to a long term contract with a no-movement clause. That means they need to protect him from Seattle in the expansion draft. They also have to protect Ryan Suter and Jared Spurgeon because of their no-movement clauses. That would leave Matt Dumba ripe for the picking for the Kraken.

The Wild don’t want that. They can’t lose a solid, two-way right defender for nothing. So, they get ahead of the game here by trading him for someone who can fill an enormous hole in their current lineup.

Max Domi has mostly played centre for the Habs, but was pushed down the lineup in postseason. WIth Nick Suzuki, Jesperi Kotkaniemi and Phillip Danault ahead of him on the depth chart, the Habs can afford to move on from Domi who needs a new contract this summer.

To sweeten the pot and help the Wild fill the void left by Dumba’s departure, the Habs also include a defenceman who is either an elite defenceman (if you ask the stats people) or a decent depth guy on a good contract (if you ask reasonable people).