I wonder if the next Forsberg-Erat type trade could occur with the Wild and Rossi. The Wild will be entering this season with the hopes of competing despite having a 38 year old as their starter, their 33 year old captain and arguably their most important player behind Kaprizov, Zuccarello, being 35 when they enter the playoffs.
They were just forced to give up on a nice young player because of their cap situation thanks to the Suter and Parise buyouts, but there's still three years on those. Are they just resigned to the fact they won't compete until 2025-2026 season? But then why sign a 37 year old starter?
By the 2025-2026 season when they regain most of their cap space back, Zuccarello and Fleury will be retired, Spurgeon will be 36, Brodin and Dumba (if he doesn't walk) will be on the wrong side of 30, their somehow top line center in Hartman will likely test UFA for a much bigger payraise than the current 1.7M he makes, and Kaprizov will be a year from UFA after just wasting his prime years for a team that likely hasn't done anything.
If the Huberdeau and Weegar aren't signed then trade them crowd get their way (we won't
) I think Lindholm for Rossi might be awesome for a basis of a trade. Lindholm between Kaprizov and Zuccarello is a huge upgrade for the Wild, and his contract is about the only one that that the Wild could reasonably fit without huge team-changing moves. By the time it expires, Zuccarelo's is off the book and his 6M could be used to partially re-sign Lindholm and then the year after that they get 14M to spend thanks to Parise and Sutter mostly coming off the book.
They are in a similar situation as the Flames as everything signals rebuild but the team isn't bad enough to tear it down.