Daily Faceoff Live: Do the Minnesota Wild trade Matt Dumba?

Matt Larkin and Steven Ellis welcomed Daily Faceoff President Frank Seravalli to the guest seat as Seravalli talks about potential trade targets and what the latest is surrounding Minnesota Wild defenseman Matt Dumba.

Dumba is listed at No. 9 on Seravalli’s Top Deadline Targets.

Matt Larkin: So I wanted to start by talking about a name that made headlines yesterday. Matt Dumba of the Minnesota Wild was a healthy scratch, he’s top-10 on your Trade Board, so is it safe to assume this was a management asset by sitting him, what’s the latest on Dumba?

Frank Seravalli: No, so this wasn’t asset management by the Wild. In fact, this was purely play based. He had an interview with head coach Dean Evason and worked on some of the issues that they saw pop up in his game. Specifically, on Tuesday night I know Dumba was surprised and I think this hits him like a 2×4 in the face; you saw the Matt Boldy extension that came down the pipe earlier this week, seven years $49,000,000 and that essentially spells the end of Dumba’s tenure in Minnesota in stone.

So now the big question is, does he move before the trade deadline or will the Wild keep him as their own rental knowing he will be walking in the summer? I think the scales have been tipped to Dumba being on the move and does the healthy scratch hurt his trade and return? Maybe, maybe not but it would free up some cap and flexibility for the Wild to go out and add at this deadline, they already have some cap space at this exact moment. But, Dumba would provide additional flexibility if they wanted to go down that path, they’re not set totally yet but there’s certainly been trade interest from other teams. 

You can watch the full episode here…