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Wild trade Nino Niederreiter to Hurricanes for Victor Rask
Hockey deal? Hockey deal.
The Minnesota Wild and Carolina Hurricanes have offered something of a soft launch to the 2018-19 NHL trade deadline, exchanging forwards Nino Niederreiter and Victor Rask on Thursday.
A former fifth-overall pick of the New York Islanders, Niederreiter has chipped in with nine goals and 23 points this season in the middle six with the Wild. He’s seen his offensive production stall over the last two years after his 25-goal, 57-point career season in 2016-17.
Stuck on six points in 26 games, Rask has succumbed to a similar, yet steeper trend over recent seasons. He hasn’t been nearly as productive since scoring 21 goals and threatening to eclipse 50 points in consecutive seasons between 2015 and 2017.
Beyond rare production totals, it’s Neiderreiter that has been the far more effective player in recent history.
Cruel to use an @EvolvingHockey viz for this but goddam pic.twitter.com/76ihlILT3b
— Alan (@loserpoints) January 17, 2019
Both Niederreiter and Rask are in the beginning stages of their current, semi-lucrative, and in some ways problematic long-term contracts. The Hurricanes will be on the hook for $5.25 million for another three seasons with Niederreiter, while Rask will cost $4 million each year over the same amount of term.
Niederreiter will fit seamlessly into the Hurricanes’ top nine, while it’s not as obvious where Rask will slot in. Minnesota now has a surplus of centres with Mikko Koivu, Eric Staal, Charlie Coyle and Joel Eriksson-Ek.
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