JiriHrdina
08-07-2004, 10:16 AM
Twin City Times
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Wild Continue to Shore Up Blueline
York and Cullen head to Minnie
Less than 48 hours after acquiring the veteran blueliner he had been searching for weeks for, Minnesota GM Grant Farhall acquired a second defenseman to shore up what had been the team’s biggest weakness. In an active day of trading Farhall also alleviated himself of salary cap and roster issues by swapping a couple of depth players in exchange for some solid prospects.
The first trade of the day saw the Wild trade veteran netminder Jamie “Noodles” McLennan to Dallas for left wing prospect Greg Campbell.
“Greg is a solid prospect. He’s a very intelligent young player that we think is only 1 year away from being a part of our big club. Meanwhile this deal allows us to give Michael Leighton the back up job which he has demonstrated he is ready for.” commented Farhall.
Farhall then made his biggest deal of day trading Todd Simpson, Vaclav Varada and prospect Jaroslav Svoboda to Ottawa for Jason York and Matt Cullen.
“Jason shores up our blueline, giving us 4 very solid guys. This deal coupled with our acquisition of Stephane Quintal earlier in the week addresses what I felt was our team’s Achilles’ heal – our defence. Meanwhile Cullen will now be our third line centre, allowing us to move Wiemer to the left wing where we feel he will be more effective”.
In his final deal of the day Farhall shipped depth players Marc Chounaird and Brad Brown to Carolina in exchange for blue-chip prospect Niklas Kronwall.
“We are extremely thrilled to get Niklas in our organization. We believe he has the potential to be a top 2 defenseman for us in a couple of years, or perhaps even sooner. Equally as important this deal allowed us to address some salary cap and roster concerns. It was entirely likely that we were going to lose one or both of the players we traded in the waiver draft so the fact that we got such a good asset in return is really a bonus.”
“Overall these deals did two things. One, we were able to improve our big club. And two, we were able to acquire two very good prospects to start to rebuild that area of our organization. And we were able to do all of it without losing any of our top 9 forwards or top 4 defenseman.” </span>
<span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>Wild Continue to Shore Up Blueline
York and Cullen head to Minnie
Less than 48 hours after acquiring the veteran blueliner he had been searching for weeks for, Minnesota GM Grant Farhall acquired a second defenseman to shore up what had been the team’s biggest weakness. In an active day of trading Farhall also alleviated himself of salary cap and roster issues by swapping a couple of depth players in exchange for some solid prospects.
The first trade of the day saw the Wild trade veteran netminder Jamie “Noodles” McLennan to Dallas for left wing prospect Greg Campbell.
“Greg is a solid prospect. He’s a very intelligent young player that we think is only 1 year away from being a part of our big club. Meanwhile this deal allows us to give Michael Leighton the back up job which he has demonstrated he is ready for.” commented Farhall.
Farhall then made his biggest deal of day trading Todd Simpson, Vaclav Varada and prospect Jaroslav Svoboda to Ottawa for Jason York and Matt Cullen.
“Jason shores up our blueline, giving us 4 very solid guys. This deal coupled with our acquisition of Stephane Quintal earlier in the week addresses what I felt was our team’s Achilles’ heal – our defence. Meanwhile Cullen will now be our third line centre, allowing us to move Wiemer to the left wing where we feel he will be more effective”.
In his final deal of the day Farhall shipped depth players Marc Chounaird and Brad Brown to Carolina in exchange for blue-chip prospect Niklas Kronwall.
“We are extremely thrilled to get Niklas in our organization. We believe he has the potential to be a top 2 defenseman for us in a couple of years, or perhaps even sooner. Equally as important this deal allowed us to address some salary cap and roster concerns. It was entirely likely that we were going to lose one or both of the players we traded in the waiver draft so the fact that we got such a good asset in return is really a bonus.”
“Overall these deals did two things. One, we were able to improve our big club. And two, we were able to acquire two very good prospects to start to rebuild that area of our organization. And we were able to do all of it without losing any of our top 9 forwards or top 4 defenseman.” </span>