John Klingberg was traded under the wire on Friday and moved to the Minnesota Wild. Klingberg is a skilled puck-moving defenceman who’s great on the powerplay. He will help the Wild this season if they’re able to maintain pace and make it into the postseason. He’s unlikely to be re-signed by the Wild considering their cap concerns and will probably be a rental.
The Wild are sending their 4th in 2025, Andrej Sustr and the rights to Eric Nesterenko. The Ducks are retaining half the salary ($3.5 million) of Klingberg.
The knock on Klingberg is that he’s not a solid defensive and on the worst defensive team of the cap era, his numbers were really not strong. The hope is that by moving him to a team where defense is more of a priority, he’ll rebound into the type of player that played many years for the Dallas Stars. The Wild need more offense and this is about as good a fit as you can get for a team that had the space to add Klingberg. The Wild also didn’t need a third team to get involved in the trade.
Michael Russo of The Athletic writes, “Wild acquiring John Klingberg, they’ll carry 8 D with Alex Goligoski staying put. As I reported this morning, it felt like they’d want a D and were willing to move Goligoski if he wanted. Now that he’s staying, Goligoski/Addison may be the extras once Jonas Brodin is back.”
Russo adds that there had been talk in recent weeks that Nesterenko didn’t plan to sign again with the Wild. It made sense to move him.
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