Minnesota Wild
Why they would make sense: Duh. Any team should be more than interested in adding Erik Karlsson. But especially one whose clock is ticking and doesn’t have much room for failure. This is a perfectly accurate description of the Minnesota Wild.
Feasible trade: Oh man. If you thought the Red Wings were tough to come up with a feasible trade for, the Wild are even worse. Two of the last deals signed before the seven-year maximum (eight years if re-signing with current team) term which came from the 2012-13 lockout were Ryan Suter and Zach Parise. This duo sums up why the NHL is far better off with the term limits.
Matt Dumba would be a good guy for the Senators to target. He’s a restricted free agent and has shown he’s probably deserving of more minutes than he currently gets. There’s just one problem – losing Dumba would do nothing to help the Wild’s cap situation. So let’s address that issue.
The Senators are going to have to take on an expensive player or two. Charlie Coyle has a cap hit of $3. 2 million for the next two seasons after this one. That’s not bad at all and he’s a pretty useful player. Tyler Ennis would have to be included as well. But how do you make up for Ottawa having to eat salary?
With draft picks. The Wild would have to give up no fewer than two first-round picks to have Karlsson even be a feasible option.
Why it won’t happen: Minnesota has very little cap space. If general manager Chuck Fletcher is done after the 2017-18 season, he leaves the Wild in really bad shape.