The Minnesota Wild have lots of needs this offseason, and come July 1, there isn't a great amount of free agents available. Here we look at the upcoming free agents that we may target, and the ones that are out there. Our most pressing needs are a 2nd line center to fill in between Latendresse and Havlat, and a scoring winger, I’ll break it down by position, and throw in numbers for each player.
Centers
_____Player______
_Age_
__GP__
__G__
__A__
__Pts__
__PIM__
__FO%__
__+/-__
__09-10 Cap Hit__
Patrick Marleau
31
82
44
39
83
22
51.4
22
6.3M
Olli Jokinen
32
82
15
35
50
75
49.4
3
5.5M
Saku Koivu
36
71
19
33
52
36
51.4
14
3.25M
Matt Cullen
34
81
16
32
48
34
51.0
-7
2.8M
John Madden
38
79
10
13
23
12
53.0
-2
2.75M
Tomas Plekanec
28
82
25
45
70
50
49.0
5
2.75M
Matthew Lombardi
29
78
19
34
53
36
49.7
8
1.817M
Mike Comrie
30
43
13
8
21
30
53.2*
-9
1.25M
Kyle Wellwood
28
75
14
11
25
12
53.8
6
1.2M
*=small sample size
Left Wing
_____Player______
_Age_
__GP__
__G__
__A__
__Pts__
__PIM__
__+/-__
__09-10 Cap Hit__
Ilya Kovalchuk
28
76
41
44
85
53
10
6.4M
Paul Kariya
36
75
18
25
43
36
-7
6M
Ray Whitney
39
80
21
37
58
26
-6
3.55M
Fredrik Modin
36
44
5
6
11
26
-8
3.25M
Alexander Frolov
29
81
19
32
51
26
-1
2.9M
Jere Lehtinen
38
58
4
13
17
17
-8
2.5M
Alex Tanguay
31
80
10
27
37
32
-2
2.5
Tomas Holmstrom
38
81
25
20
51
60
5
2.25M
Christopher Higgins
28
67
8
9
17
32
-9
2.25M
Raffi Torres
29
74
19
17
36
34
-11
2.25
Alexei Ponikarvosky
31
77
21
29
50
61
-1
2.105M
Ruslan Fedotenko
32
80
11
19
30
50
-17
1.8M
Right Wing
_____Player______
_Age_
__GP__
__G__
__A__
__Pts__
__PIM__
__+/-__
__09-10 Cap Hit__
Lee Stempniak
28
80
28
20
48
26
0
2.5M
Colby Armstrong
28
79
15
14
29
61
6
2.4M
Marek Svatos
29
54
7
4
11
35
-13
2.050M
Maxim Afinogenov
31
82
24
37
61
46
-17
0.8M
Miroslav Satan
36
38
9
5
14
12
8
0.7M
This is a start for now, I will update the post when some of the free agents are signed, and I am hoping to add some defensemen too even though I don't see us going for many this offseason. We could add one though if we needed depth after a trade or something. Let me know if I missed anyone, and what you think we should target, it truly looks super thin on the forward front, but we will see what happens.
I wouldn't mind seeing Cullen here, but as has been stated before, I don't think he'd want to come here. If he did, he would probably be a good fit between Latendresse and Havlat. I'd take a lot of those centers up there, but since it's kind of short on depth, a lot of them will get high contracts since there aren't very many of them.
I may be in the minority here, but I don't want Jokinen on this team. He seems like a perennial loser to me:
Best player on Florida - does nothing
Best player on Phoenix - does nothing
Can't stick in Calgary playing with Iginla
Rangers fans didn't seem like him too much
Lombardi would be an interesting choice (if he wanted to leave Phoenix); faster then a mother****er
I threw Marleau and Kovalchuk on the list, but I think we absolutely no shot of landing either of them this offseason. It's a long shot at best.
I think I can agree with your points, he will most likely sign a cheap contract since most people won't be happy to hand him a contract, Fletch has been good about the same thing, I'd say if he was on a 1-year contract or something for pretty cheap, it'd be worth the shot as we did with Sykora this year. He didn't work out, but he didn't cost us much to try him out.
I think Lombardi will probably stay in Phoenix, but you never know what can happen.
He could also go back to the Blues, they could find themselves back into the playoffs next year if they play better at home I'm sure. They didn't have that bad of a year. If he took a paycut, I'm sure they'd like to re-sign him.
Fedotenko was a -17, that's pretty bad. I know Havlat had a bad +/-, but that's pretty bad. I'd love to see Lombardi, but I think he would want to stay in PHX. We'll have to wait and see, there's really not too much up there that's available.
If you could get Plekanec for 3.5-4.0m/per for 4 years I would sign him although I can't see that being the best offer he gets. Does anyone know if he's pals with either Havlat or Z?
If you could get Plekanec for 3.5-4.0m/per for 4 years I would sign him although I can't see that being the best offer he gets. Does anyone know if he's pals with either Havlat or Z?
Good question. I bet he knows our Czechs as I'm sure he's played in a few International tourneys with them. But, I know he was in NA during the lockout because I saw him play for Hamilton. ... Maybe he's also friends with our Gee-uum?
I don't see why we can get him for under 4MM .. if Fletch offers 4-5 years. It seems like until this year he's been a scapegoat in Montreal and my be underappreciated in the East.
i'd like to see us gain a little speed. lombardi would do the trick in that regard. I fear, however, we'll instead pick up one of the 35+ year olds and justify it with the "need for veteran leadership".
Lombardi will probably garner a decent amount of interest, and I gotta think that the Coyotes would want to keep him. I heard Plekanec wants to re-sign in Montreal, and I'm sure that he will. I know that Fletch is interested since I remember a tweet about us wanting him at the deadline, but maybe he is asking for too much. We'll have to see what Fletch ends up doing. There aren't too many good centers in this year's FA class. I'd think we would be going more toward the trade route if that's possible.
