The Wild bolster their lineup with a physical forward, adding faceoff strength and grit acquired from Nashville for a future draft pick.
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Wild's General Manager Bill Guerin said on Sunday that the Wild would look for a center at the deadline.
He said it could be a bottom-six center or a top-six center
"Yeah, our faceoffs. Our center position is extremely important. I think, not in a generating offense area, I think more just the - we could do a top six, or we could do a bottom six. We could do either or. But I think our current guys have to be better in the faceoff circle no matter what. That has to change. But we can also, we can also look to getting somebody that could help us in that department, too."
Well, the Wild addressed that on Tuesday when they sent a 2028 second round pick to the Nashville Predators in exchange for Michael McCarron.
McCarron, 30, will line up on the wing but takes face-offs a lot. He has taken 428 face-offs this season with Nashville and has a 52.8 FO%.
Wild head coach John Hynes coached McCarron for a few seasons in Nashville alongside Yakov Trenin. Both Trenin and McCarron played on the same line and was a big and heavy line that sent a lot of players through the boards.
The 6-foot-6 forward has five goals, seven assists, 12 points, 73 penalty minutes and 165 hits in 59 games this season for Nashville. He is making $900,000.
He has been in a few altercations with Wild forward Mats Zuccarello but will have to put that aside now that he will be teammates with him. He has also fought Jake Middleton three times in his career.
Nonetheless, this is a nice addition to the Wild with Marcus Foligno out week-to-week with a lower-body injury. Plus, Hynes knows him well.
“Yeah, and again, he brings a lot and faceoffs are one element of his game that we really like. Hynsie’s had him before, so there’s some comfort there with the coach and the player, which I think is good," Guerin said. "But yeah faceoffs is something we’ve been needing to improve and looking to improve. I think Mike has the ability to be a really good faceoff guy and on the penalty kill, too. And the right shot, it’s hard on your off-side and I think just to have that right-handed guy is important also.”
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