There really was no getting around this. The Minnesota Wild were always going to lose a good player to the Vegas Golden Knights.
The Wild are a team whose strength is their depth- both at forward and on the blue line. The ability to protect only 7 forwards and 3 defensemen in the upcoming expansion draft simply wasn’t enough for Minnesota to keep everyone they wanted.
As such, no matter who the Wild decided to protect (or expose), there were going to be unhappy fans in the State of Hockey.
And there were unhappy fans aplenty when the Wild’s protection list went public yesterday.