Risebrough did all right by me

Sorry, this may offend some of you hard-core Minnesota Wild fans, but I believe General Manager Doug Risebrough was right to leave his roster as is, and forgo any trade deadline moves yesterday. It is clear that this team, with its current roster, is not going anywhere this season and the last thing the Wild needed was an acquisition that would have been here short-term. I thought that he may have been able to move a few of our 'second tier', soon to be unrestricted free agents, as Minnesota has four (Marc-Andre Bergeron, Kurtis Foster, Martin Skoula, & Stephane Veilleux, plus Marian Gaborik) who will soon hit the open market. But as you saw by the moves made yesterday, there really was no demand for any of these type of players. I have no doubt that the team made attempts to unload, but short of giving them away your best play right now is to ride them to the end, as there is still that outside chance of making it to the post-season.

What irked me today was an online petition I came across calling for the firing of Risebrough. I think a knee-jerk decision because of the lack of movement yesterday would not benefit the long term future of this team and fans would not like the end results. I am as frustrated and disappointed as the next fan and wanted to see something happen. But the fact is that this team, even with an Olli Jokinen, is going nowhere this season and if you believe otherwise, you should take off the Wild colored glasses and check the roster again. What is going to give us a clue as to what direction the team is heading will come after the season is over. This is where Risebrough has a history of making his best moves, and I see no reason to believe that he will not be plucking some nice acquisitions during the summer months ahead. I agree that the trick with this management team is to get them to better target and resign the assets that they have, and in a timely manner. After all, there is no doubt that by waiting to sign Niklas Backstrom cost the team possibly a million dollars a season for the four year contract. I also agree that letting Andrew Brunette (first stint with Wild) and more recently Brian Rolston walk were not in the best interest of this team. But making a big-time move would have further put this team in the hole for years to come.