The Hurricanes and Wild pulled off a one-for-one trade. Which team came out ahead? We grade both GMs on the swap.
Hurricanes get: LW Nino Niederreiter
Wild get: C Victor Rask
Carolina Hurricanes: B+
The Canes are sick of missing the playoffs, and you get the sense that owner Tom Dundon, who is only in his first full season running the team, is already impatient. While the Canes lurk under the playoff bubble, it's clear they need one thing to get them over the edge: scoring help. Besides Sebastian Aho and Teuvo Teravainen, no Carolina player has more than 30 points right now.
Niederreiter has been stunted a bit in Minnesota (just 55 points in his last 109 games), but he might just need a change of scenery to get his groove back. We know he can finish. More than that, we know he gives Carolina a good value if he returns to his 2016-17 form. This is still a team operating on a budget, with the lowest cap hit in the league. They need to pay Aho and Teravainen this summer, and find themselves spending just $1.25 million more for a more talented player on the same term. Niederreiter drives possession well, and plays a well-rounded defensive game. He was the No. 5 overall draft pick in 2010, capable of consistent 20-plus-goal seasons, who had sputtered out with the Wild. By the time of the trade, he was in fourth-line purgatory.
The Canes capitalized at a time when the Wild had to sell low. That's a good hockey move for GM Don Waddell. Honestly, the fact that Waddell was able to find a trading partner for a player making $4 million with just one goal this season is also a boon.
This is low risk for Carolina, but the ceiling isn't huge. If they are going to break their playoff drought, this can't be the only move. It has to be just the beginning.
Minnesota Wild: C
GM Paul Fenton has been on the job for eight months and has not made any significant additions to the roster he inherited, until now. After a minor move to acquire Pontus Aberg (11 goals and eight assists in 37 games with Anaheim this season), Fenton went even bigger on Thursday. He shipped out Niederreiter, a 26-year-old right wing once believed to be a key piece of Minnesota's future core. Niederreiter has been vulnerable to a trade for months. He received a five-year, $26.25 million extension before the 2017-18 season, but has struggled to live up to that contract, especially in an injury-plagued 2017-18 campaign (which included sputtering out with zero points in five playoff games).
The Wild have struggled with center depth, and Rask allows them to get younger down the middle, considering that top two centers Mikko Koivu and Eric Staal are both 34-plus, and Staal's future with the team is not cemented as he becomes an unrestricted free agent this summer. Where does Rask fit this season, though, with Charlie Coyle playing well in the third-line center spot? (Or does one of them move to wing?)
Rask also gives Minnesota cost certainty at the position -- he has three years remaining on a deal that pays $4 million per season -- but they are getting a lesser player than who they traded out. As a higher-spending team, they do save $1.25 million against the cap, but is that really going to make the difference? Rask is one year younger than Niederreiter, but again, not a total difference maker.
Rask's struggles are even more defined than Niederreiter's. He's averaging less than 0.40 points per game in the last two seasons. Unless Fenton knows of a specific situation in Carolina that had stunted Rask and he believes all that is needed is a change of scenery, this is a puzzling move, at best.