Minnesota Wild general manager Chuck Fletcher finally made a move to bolster his injury ravaged forward lines, acquiring right winger Chuck Kobasew from the Boston Bruins.
Heading to the Bruins is checking forward Craig Weller, a second round pick in 2011 and the rights to prospect Alexander Fallstrom.
Kobasew comes with a $2.33 million salary for this season and the Wild were roughly 0K from the salary cap ceiling, but according to Michael Russo of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune the club placed forward Pierre-Marc Bouchard (concussion) on long term injury status thus allowing them to take on Kobasew's salary.
With Bouchard, Cal Clutterbuck (sprained ankle), Martin Havlat and Petr Sykora (groin) sidelined the Wild were struggling offensively, and with nothing really worthwhile in the free agent market or the waiver wire Fletcher was forced to make a trade.
Kobasew is a former three-time twenty-plus goalscorer who had a career-season in 2008-09 with 42 points in 68 games, although this season he's off to a slow start with no goals and one assist in seven games.
Fletcher is obviously hoping a change of scenery might help Kobasew regain his scoring touch.
For the Bruins moving Kobasew dumps his salary from their books for both this season and next, freeing up valuable cap space not only for later use this season but also in re-signing several key players by next summer.
Weller adds affordable checking line depth which can be used either on the Bruins roster or farm club, they pick up another valuable draft pick and add another prospect to their system.
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I've been a Wild fan since inception. Our top line would be most other team's second line. Our fourth line has no business in the NHL at all. If I hear "they're a young team" one more time I'm gonna puke. Get these bums outta here and we'll wait for the next expansion opportunity......again.
winky12011:06 AM EST