Out of the four true Central Division contenders — the Minnesota Wild, Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars and Winnipeg Jets — only one didn’t improve significantly at the 2025 NHL trade deadline. And veteran forward Marcus Foligno is not too thrilled about the lack of moves his general manager made on March 7.
“It’s tough. We all want to win. We’ve been grinding for the past couple months, so it’s just — I think you always want to see yourself as a team that’s always going for it,” Foligno told The Athletic’s Michael Russo and Joe Smith on Saturday morning after a quiet deadline in the State of Hockey.
“We have a great team, but we’re a different team without those three studs that we’re missing. Would you have liked to add or done something? For sure. But when you’re kind of going with [GM Bill Guerin’s] plan and what we have to understand is it’s moving chess pieces right now, and if you lose something you might regret it.
“And Billy doesn’t want to be put in that position. We understand that side of it, too. But you look at other teams bulk up and it just kinda gives you a little bit of jealousy. We know next year is next year and that we’ll have that off our plate finally, but it just feels a little bit frustrating when you always want to be in that position to succeed.”
The Wild didn’t really do anything at the deadline besides adding Gustav Nyquist from the Nashville Predators and Justin Brazeau from the Boston Bruins. The pair have combined for just one assist in a Minnesota sweater.
At the same time, Dallas acquired the big fish of the deadline in Mikko Rantanen, Colorado added Brock Nelson, Charlie Coyle and Ryan Lindgren, and Winnipeg brought Luke Schenn and Brandon Tanev into the fold.
Although the dead cap space of Ryan Suter and Zach Parise — which cost a combined $14.7 million this season — has hindered the front office, Guerin could have recouped some money by placing key injured forwards Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek on long-term injured reserve until the postseason.
But he chose not to go that route. From a Wild perspective, it doesn’t make a ton of sense as to why Guerin wouldn’t look to make a bigger deadline add, and Foligno’s frustration is warranted. Outside of veterans Jared Spurgeon and Jonas Brodin, no one on the roster has won a playoff round with the team, per Russo and Smith.
Despite that, the Wild have been playing better as of late — even without Kaprizov, Eriksson Ek and Brodin — and look well-positioned to make the playoffs come mid-April.
Wild back on track after tough stretch
Things were starting to look bleak after Minnesota lost seven of 10 games between February 25-March 15. But they’ve won two in a row since, on the back of a pair of excellent Filip Gustavsson performances.
The Wild beat the Los Angeles Kings 3-1 on Monday and followed it up with a convincing 4-0 triumph over the Seattle Kraken two nights later.
With that, John Hynes’ group is 39-25-5 and a full eight points up on the Vancouver Canucks, who occupy the final wildcard berth in the Western Conference.
Even with a few of their best players missing, the Wild are hanging around, and are just two points back of the surging Avalanche for third place in the Central Division.
While it’s discouraging that the front office mainly stayed pat at the deadline, all Minnesota has to do is get in and they should have all of their best players back.
With 13 games left in the regular-season — and the way Gustavsson is playing between the pipes — that looks very likely as the stretch run heats up.
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