Upon completion of the draft Saturday night, everyone was talking about how few trades took place. Fletcher explained that, though talk happened on the draft days, he couldn't sort out the deals he wanted. These few days before the free agency deadline might turn out to be exciting ones, though. According to TSN's Bob McKenzie, the Wild are still frontrunners in the Heatley trade. McKenzie also says that Fletcher is actively pursuing the Lightning's Vincent Lecavalier.
The most interesting thing I've heard about landing Heatley was from Hockey Buzz's CEO Eklund. He said via Twitter that a three way deal is in the works, involving the Wild, the Sens, and an unknown team. Everyone's best guess is the Blues. The Wild apparently aren't offering enough for Heatley on their own (Ottawa wanted Brent Burns, Minnesota unlikely to give him up) and the Blues apparently really want Harding. So the deal would work something like this: Heatley would go to Minny, Harding would be sent to the third mystery team, and Sens would receive players from both the Wild and the mystery team. So if I'm on to something and it really is the Blues, the Wild would offer up a few players (Ottawa has apparently expressed interest in Butch and Z) and the Blues would probably part with a few of their young guys. I know Backes has been in trade talks a lot.
The Lecavalier talks are newer, McKenzie just Twittered about them today, and the real question is, does Fletch see landing Lecavalier (a center) as a backup for if things fall through with Ottawa? (Heatley is a LW.) Or is he trying to figure out how to get both? I don't know if we have the cap space to afford both of them, but who knows...we have a lot of well paid guys that are UFAs this year. If we lose Gaborik, which seems to be without question these days, we'd fill the void if we got both of them.
If not, the Wild are also interested in a number of soon to be free agents---Marian Hossa, Marty Havlat and the Sedin twins to name a few. That's a little trickier, however. Canucks are also rumored to be trying to sign Hossa (and Gaborik) to complete the Slovak trifecta. Both have expressed interest in playing with Demitra. Havlat has said on Twitter that he is doing everything possible to stay in Chicago. And many sources say the Sedin twins are almost positively heading to Toronto. A lot of things are up in the air. Stay tuned.
