The main thing is to figure out what kind of team we have. It was only a few weeks ago that MN was in 2nd( I think?) oa in the league. I can see management allowing themselves to think that they had a chance to win a Cup. The recent losing streak is not, IMO, representative of what the team is. There were a lot of games they let slip away, even though I thought they were the better team. Having said that, i was never convinced that the Wild were a top 4 team, even when they were top 4 in the standings.
I think we all know what MN is. A MOR, struggle to make the playoffs, team. It is also a team that has their top players aging, with a couple of exceptions. The question is whether they recognize it sooner, rather than later. It has been pretty obvious to me since ....forever, really. I thought we had a chance during the 2016-17 season to make some noise, but we know how that turned out (and no, it wasn't Hanzel's fault). Our hope to be a better team rested in the development of Coyle and Nino, IMO. If they turned into the borderline 1st liners that they showed glimpses of being in 2016-17 then we would be having a different conversation right now, but it's hard to see them as anything but borderline 2 liners at best.
Is there a will with the team management to build a team that is capable of winning a Cup, even if it means taking a step back for a year or two or three? That step back would involve trading some players that have value now, such as Staal, Coyle, Nino(?), for picks or prospects, as opposed to a "hockey trade" of trading one of those players for another player of more or less equal value. To me, that is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The Wild are not losing because they are lacking middle six depth players(which is likely what we will get back in exchange for the above players). They are losing because they lack a couple of impact forwards. You simply can't acquire those players in trade, unless you trade a player (Dumba, Granlund) that creates a hole somewhere else, which is self defeating. You have to draft those players...IMO, the FA route is not the way to go to acquire top talent.
So my answer is to retool starting Jan. I need to give Nino and Coyle just that little bit of extra time to prove to me that they are as mediocre as they appear to be.
Wild will never be able to fully sell off as long as Parise and Suter remain glued to the team. Parise is playing really well now, but you don't have to be a genius to know that it is unlikely to last for long. Suter has an impressive amount of pts. scored, but he has looked vulnerable defensively to me, lately, which is ominous.
There is a way to make an employee waive a NMC, should we determine that we want to. Not sure if the management wants to go there.