Sunday Insider: Making good from bad

There's few more miserable places to be than inside a losing NHL locker room. These are proud players, and losing kills them.

"It's painful," said Carolina Hurricanes General Manager Jim Rutherford, whose injury-riddled team was 29th in the league before Friday's games. "When you start out in a year, your goal is to win the Stanley Cup. Somewhere along the way, things go wrong and you have to go through a lot of pain, and it's hard on the fans, it's hard on the players, it's hard on the coaches."

Nobody tries to lose. Nobody wants to lose. Especially players.

But this potentially painful Wild season might not be the worst thing for the long-term future of the franchise.

The Wild is depleted of top-end, young talent like few other teams. Just turn on the "Center Ice" package or study other teams' depth charts, and it's plain as day.

The Wild has no game-breaking forwards coming up, and developing these players might be the Wild's only option. The next five months living through all the losses would be excruciating, but a top-five pick in the 2010 draft would be a nice "reward" for such a lousy year.

Look at the Colorado Avalanche. One horrific season got the Avs potential superstar Matt Duchene with the third overall pick.

Heck, look at the Hurricanes, who since 2002 have either gone to the Conference/Stanley Cup finals or missed the playoffs. In 2002, the Canes lost to Detroit in the Cup Finals. In 2003, the 'Canes picked second in the draft and were rewarded with Eric Staal.

"The year we got Eric Staal, that was the biggest piece for us to win the Stanley Cup [in 2006]," Rutherford said. "When you get one of those high picks, it puts you in a much stronger position to win the ultimate prize."

Of course, former Calgary Flames GM and North Stars Director of Player Personnel Craig Button says it's not the only "model."

"Why isn't Detroit and New Jersey doing it? They have seven Stanley Cups in the last [14] years," Button said. "It's nice to have the top picks, but you need to be able to select players, develop players, complement players and it's not just picking in the top five or top 10.

"Anaheim chose Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry 19 and 28 [in 2003]. You're not going to go wrong picking third, but where Colorado really made hay last year wasn't Matt Duchene, it was with the 33rd pick with Ryan O'Reilly."

But a top pick would help. Since the Wild chose Marian Gaborik third overall in 2003, the Wild has had just one top-five pick, and that was in 2005 when the draft order was determined by a post-lockout lottery in one of the weakest drafts in terms of depth. The Wild got the fourth pick, and chose Benoit Pouliot.

If the Wild gets a top-five pick this year, Button says there's a chance to draft a "Marian Gaborik-like superstar." Up front, he loves Windsor's Taylor Hall, Plymouth's Tyler Seguin, Russia's Kirill Kabanov and Prince George's Brett Connolly.

During losing seasons, Carolina's Rutherford says there comes a point after the 40-game mark where teams must transition. Maybe they play their backup goalies more, call up youngsters from the minors and trade away veterans.

It's a sensitive subject obviously for Wild General Manager Chuck Fletcher, but there may come a point where he'll have to start shopping his eight unrestricted free agents.

Some players, such as grizzled Owen Nolan and puck-movers Kim Johnsson and Marek Zidlicky, could have value to playoff teams near the deadline.

However, in a salary-cap era where it's hard to afford players, Rutherford said, "You sure can't have a one-day or one-week fire sale like the old days. You have to move players here and there over time."