Wild need to go all-in for a forward

The Minnesota Wild shook up the league with their blockbuster acquisition of superstar defenseman Quinn Hughes from the Vancouver Canucks.

In doing so, general manager Bill Guerin added one of the top talents the NHL has to offer to a group that has put together quite strong results as of late.

After a slow start, the Wild have bounced back to go on a run all the way to fourth in the league-wide NHL standings. Even so, they are still third in the Central Division due to the fact that the Colorado Avalanche and Dallas Stars have separated themselves as the clear-cut top two teams in the league.

With Hughes in the fold, Minnesota is a legitimate contender, but more work needs to be done to assemble a group that could realistically get through both of the other super powers in the division come the spring.

On Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed why Guerin needs to follow up his blockbuster acquisition of Hughes with a move to solidify the team’s forward unit.

Tyler Yaremchuk: If I’m Bill Guerin, this can’t be it. For me, you have a year and a half to prove to Quinn Hughes and really prove to everybody that no, we are a legitimate Stanley Cup contender. We are capable of going on deep, long runs… If you make the third round, if you make the Stanley Cup Final once in these next two years, it probably does get easier to keep Hughes in the mix. If you’re Bill Guerin… you have a lot of blueliners. If you need to free up some cap space, looking to move a guy like Jacob Middleton… they have pieces they can move for some help up front. And that’s where they’ve got to zero in. I wouldn’t be holding on to any future assets, any prospect, any draft pick, whatever it is, this team now needs to add an impact forward and really push all their chips into the middle.

Carter Hutton: I agree. I think this is the time now where you look at that bottom six. You look at where can we get better? Where can we get deeper?

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…