Speculation: If you were GM of Minnesota what direction would you take?

[BrettHullsToe]

The Wild's biggest problem with playoff aspirations is that they play in the Central, which currently has no awful/rebuilding teams to farm for easy points now that Colorado has completed their turnaround. With their 83 points, Minnesota was the last team in the division, while both the Metropolitan and Atlantic had 3 teams worse, and the Pacific had 4.

So, who is the Wild going to pass to get to 5th in the division for the honor of being the 2nd wild card and (probably) going out in the 1st round? Chicago maybe, and then hope one of the other playoff teams gets hit by multiple injuries and falls off enough to let the Wild pass them up?

That seems like a shaky strategy when this is the perfect time to rebuild. When you're the worst team in your division and all the teams above you are making a run at the postseason, it's time to start over in whatever way is possible.

 

[Dr Jan Itor]

I would take the direction of drafting good players and making smart free agent signings.

 

[57special]

Trade Zucker+Spurgeon+Dumba+Brodin. Dumba probably has the highest value. They could easily get few 1st round picks and prospects for those players. Then sign free agents to short term few years to fill in spots until prospects are ready. They could change the team and move forward but it will take at least 3+ years or so.

So, trade the 3 youngest of our top 4 so we can get draft picks that might turn out to be as good as the three we traded if we get really lucky? Wha?

 

[hmc1987]

We beat the Avs (2014) and the Blues (2015). We lost to the Cup champions (Hawks) twice. We had two years that were marred by serious injuries to key players late in the season: 2016 (Parise) and 2018 (Suter). And we had one year where everything fell into place but we got beat by a white-hot goalie (2017).

"Contender" (in this context) is a word without a useful definition. Was Tampa a "contender" this year? Was St Louis? Where do we put Caronlina? Or Toronto?

Damn. Ether.