Brendan Morrison wanted to stay on West Coast

From Michael Russo of the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

I guesstimated inside the Blog comments yesterday that it might have been a
first-come, first-serve thing between Owen Nolan and Brendan Morrison here (in
other words, who called the Wild back first). I couched it as speculation. I
have since learned that the Wild was informed Morrison decided he wanted to stay
on the West coast, and that the Wild signed Nolan once it knew it was out of the
Morrison sweepstakes. He’s since signed with Anaheim.

As I wrote many, many times leading up to free agency, the center position
was horrific in this class. In fact, I think Bobby Holik was the only center to
sign on July 1 despite a feeding frenzy for players. Once the Wild didn’t get
Morrison, it didn’t feel it was worth spending lots of term and bucks on lesser
centers.

Read more news and notes from Russo here.

Interesting details from Russo here. Morrison would have fit into the Wild’s plans better than Nolan, but the Wild obviously felt signing one was surely better than none.