Minnesota Wild looking to trade Victor Rask
NBC Sports: Minnesota Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau indicates that Victor Rask finds himself behind four other centers on the depth chart, and thus might not begin the season as one of 12 forwards expected to dress for regular-season games.
“At this moment, I would say that there are four centers ahead of him now that we’ve seen that [captain Mikko Koivu’s knee] is fine and he can play,” Boudreau said. “It makes it difficult. But this is where you become mentally strong. You wait for your chance, whether it’s Sunday in [the] preseason game and you score two or three, or the first chance you get into a game prove that you can’t be taken out of the game. That’s what it’s about.”
Rask, 26, carries a $4 million AAV through 2021-22. As horrendous as Rask looked at times last season in only managing nine points in 49 games between the Wild and Carolina Hurricanes, it’s not impossible for there to be some bounce-back, particularly if you put him in a position to succeed.
If the Wild were looking more toward trying to optimize for the future, they might want to boost Rask’s numbers to make it possible to trade him for something, rather than having him be a potential $4M black hole and healthy scratch.
Will the New York Islanders trade Thomas Hickey?
Fansided: New york Islanders head coach Barry Trotz indicated that the six defensemen suiting up for the New York Islanders on Saturday will be the six defensemen he’ll go with on the opening night roster. And it seems that veteran Thomas Hickey isn’t on that list.
It appears Jonny Boychuk will stay as the Islanders seventh defenseman. So now what happens with Hickey?
With a $2.5 million cap hit, Thomas Hickey is a rather inexpensive option for a team looking to add a third pair defenseman who can move the puck and is pretty good at protecting the blue line.
The Islanders wouldn’t be able to get back much for Hickey in a trade. You’d think that a middle-round or late-round pick might be enough to send him to another team.
