From Patrick Reusse of the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
Smith and his mentor would have found someone else if they had gone subterranean exploring in the past two weeks: Doug Risebrough, the president/GM of the Wild.
Risebrough was in the bargain basement’s hockey section, up to his elbows in the squalor of stinking pads and broken sticks, trying to find bodies that he could pass off to his team’s gullible consumers as real players.
Read the entire article here.
I have to disagree with Reusse. While it is true the Wild didn’t put out a lot of money in the current marketplace, who is to say that is such a bad thing? This year’s free agent class wasn’t that strong, and the Wild would have probably been overpaying for a number of player’s services. Instead, the team brought in more affordable talent in Andrew Brunette, Owen Nolan and traded for Marek Zidlicky. I understand those acquisitions won’t blow the socks off the fan base, but the alternative may have been bad long-term contracts.
