This season's Wild has not lived up to expectations set forth in the beginning of the year by General Manager McCaslin. Although the club sits one spot out of a playoff position, it has failed to defeat big time teams on a consistent basis all year long. With this, there have been a couple trades recently.
Marek Svatos, Richard Panik, Matheiu Dandenault, and Michael Sauer were sent to Detroit for Douglas Murray and Tomas Kopecky. In anticipation for next year, McCaslin noted the importance of building up Minnesota's defense. Kopecky is a good role player with some upside assuming a right wing position on the Wild's third line.
Prior to the Detroit deal, the Wild picked up veteran Swedish defenseman, Andreas Lilja from Atlanta for some money; another defensive defenseman to bolster the thin blueline.
Finally, McCaslin seemingly replaced Svatos with veteran winger Steve Sullivan from San Jose. The free agent to be, was dealt for young grinder Tyler Kennedy.
Hopefully these deals set Minnesota up for contention in the coming seasons or even for a boost to the present one.
Our grades to this point;
A: Todd White, Alexei Kovalev
A-: Kari Lehtonen
B+: Martin Erat, Vaclav Prospal
B:John Scott, Ossi Vaananen, Boyd Gordon
C-: Everyone else
F: Curtis Sanford
