The Stanley Cup is wrapping up between Pittsburgh and Nashville, but there will still be plenty of storylines to follow after the season ends. The Expansion Draft takes place on June 21, followed by the entry draft two days later, and finally free agency opens on July 1.
Despite a franchise-best 106 points last season, the Wild were upset by the St. Louis Blues in the first-round of the playoffs. With an up-hill battle that is the Expansion Draft and a core of veterans getting another year older, Minnesota has some areas to address this offseason.
However, Scott Cullen of TSN.com wonders if the Wild could make a splash and reunite superstar Alexander Ovechkin with head coach Bruce Boudreau, who spent five seasons as head coach of the Capitals.
“The Wild have the horses to make an interesting offer to Washington for the superstar winger,” said Cullen. “But that would be a complex deal and probably would have to occur after the expansion draft.”
After the Capitals were eliminated from the playoffs, Washington’s GM Brian MacLellan was asked if he would ever consider moving Ovechkin to which he said the team isn’t shopping him but he would consider a “legitimate hockey deal” for the team’s captain.
Ovechkin has a cap hit of more than $9.5 million for the next four years and it wont exactly be easy to acquire him.
Depending on who’s still with the team after the Expansion Draft, Minnesota would probably have to package a deal involving core players like Nino Niederreiter, Mikael Granlund or Charlie Coyle on top of prized prospects Jordan Greenway, Kirill Kaprizov, or Luke Kunin.
It would take a king’s ransom to pull it off, which is what the Los Angeles Kings did in 1988 to acquire some guy named Wayne Gretzky.
Although Ovechkin will be 32 in September, he’d give the Wild a legitimate superstar – something the team desperately needs.
