Wild shopping Ryan Hartman to move out money for center upgrade

The Minnesota Wild went all in earlier this month when general manager Bill Guerin landed all-world defenseman Quinn Hughes in a blockbuster trade with the Vancouver Canucks.

The Wild, off to a 23-10-6 start that has them third in the Central Division, look like legitimate Stanley Cup contenders, but more work needs to be done to put them in a place where they can compete with the likes of Minnesota and Colorado in a seven-game series.

Adding another gamebreaking forward to team up with Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy would be the obvious next step, but Guerin would likely have to clear up some salary cap space to make that happen.

On Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by NHL insider David Pagnotta to discuss why veteran Ryan Hartman could be the next domino to fall in St. Paul.

Carter Hutton: Whenever I need a little help I go to The Fourth Period for my cheatsheet here… I see there’s an article that you guys have up about Bill Guerin searching for a top six forward. Is this their push now in the Central to try to complete with the Colorados, the Dallases? They have this window with Quinn Hughes now.

David Pagnotta: Before Quinn Hughes was even in range of a possibility, Guerin was out there looking for a top-six guy. That hasn’t changed. The only thing I’m wondering about, and we’ve talked about this before… is do they go to the center position because they traded Marco Rossi? They’re going to have to be creative. They’re shopping and have been kind of dangling Ryan Hartman. He’s been out there as a guy to potentially move. He’s got a limited no-trade, I think it’s around 10 games. He’s a guy they’ve been kind of dangling a little bit in terms of moving out money, because they’re going to have to move out money to bring someone in if they want an impact guy.

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