Twin City Times
August 28, 2004
Wild Day of Trading
Minnesota Complete Two Big Deals in Active Day of Trading
Check one more name off of The Wild's "shopping list".
In an eventful day, the Minnesota Wild finally managed to acquire a player they have been trying to acquire for months with the acquisition of Mike Rathje, addressing their need for a #2 defenseman.
In the first trade of the day the Wild shipped veteran left winger Rod Brindamour and highly touted prospect Kevin Klein to the Flames in exchange for offensive defenseman Sandis Ozolnish.
Ozolnish's stay with the Wild proved to be brief.
In a second major deal (pending league approval) the Wild flipped Ozolnish to the Boston Bruins along with Chris Therien and Jason Wiemer in exchange for Mike Rathje, Ville Nieminen and centre Josef Stumpel.
Wild GM Grant Farhall commented on the day's events:
"We had identified a need to bring in a #2 defenseman to play major minutes with Zubov, so we jumped at the chance to acquire Sandis. However, he was not a perfect fit as we were looking for someone more defensively minded. Moreover, that deal created a big hole on our 2nd line since we had to trade Rod. As such it was our intention to try to work out a second deal as soon as possible. "
"Rathje is a player we've had our eye on for some time and we've been dissapointed to see other teams get their hands on him. Mike's defensive prowess is a perfect compliment to Sergei's offensive game. We are pleased to finally welcome him to our team. Meanwhile, Josef will place centre for us, allowing us to play Jan Hrdina at LW - filling the spot vacated by Brindamour. It was hard to trade a gritty guy like Wiemer, but Ville will fill his spot nicely on our third line. Everything works out well for us and we were able to make these deals and stay on budget.".
Farhall then outlined his team's current needs which include a veteran back up to play behind Dunham, and an upgrade at the #2 centre spot. Farhall admitted though that it would be hard to address those needs without creating holes in other spots.
The day's total events break down as follows:
Out: Rod Brindamour, Kevin Klein, Chris Therien, Jason Wiemer, Cash
In: Mike Rathje, Ville Nieminen, Josef Stumpel.
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