One of our generation's foremost philosophers once said, "If you want to get some, you'd better bring some."
The philosopher, of course, is former Gophers football coach Tim Brewster. And like any good philosophy, the phrase can be applied to many facets of life.
We will apply it here to the Minnesota Wild and GM Chuck Fletcher, who for the third consecutive year have made the decision late in the season to given up pieces of the future to acquire what they hope is a better present day.
The question, then, is simple: Fletcher wants to get some players; did he bring too much to other teams, sacrificing a chunk of the Wild's future in the process?
Much of how we answer that question depends on what you think of the Wild and how it is currently constructed. We know Zach Parise, Ryan Suter and Jason Pominville will be here for a very long time. But we also know that a lot of their young players will reach payday age in the coming years, and the Wild presumably won't be able to keep all of them. Rather, they will need to replenish the roster with more young talent.
That said, you can't always worry about three or four years from now. The Wild is playing in a manner that suggests it could do some damage in this year's playoffs. To get better, Minnesota again has had to give up players. You are not, after all, going to slay a bear with a pellet gun.
Big-picture, though, it feels as though Fletcher has given up an awful lot the past three years leading up to the trading deadline. Some of the moves listed below came a little earlier than the deadlin
e, but all were in the middle of seasons. The principal players and picks are listed:
