Wild's play will decide its strategy

With eight pending unrestricted free agents, it's the most common question as the March 3 trade deadline approaches: Will the Wild be a buyer or a seller?

It's not a simple question to answer because the Wild can't figure out what it is. Is it the workhorse team that looked like a playoff contender by sweeping a four-game homestand against tough competition or is it the outworked team that looked like a playoff pretender by not showing up until it was too late in each game of its just-completed three-game road trip?

The Wild, two points behind the eighth and final playoff spot one week ago, has fallen to 12th place and six points behind.

"The play of the team will dictate what we do," General Manager Chuck Fletcher said. "Our goal is to make the playoffs, and we feel we're a playoff-caliber team.

"The good news is in the very near future we will get [defenseman] Brent Burns back [from a concussion] and that'll be, we think, an impact addition to our lineup as we go down the stretch. But certainly, we have to make some real strides here in the next couple weeks."

In today's salary-cap world, it's hard to be a true "buyer" or "seller." With 11 teams within $1 million of the $56.8 million cap -- six are over, including the Wild because of Pierre-Marc Bouchard's long-term injury status -- teams can't just add and add like the old days.

That affects the Wild, which might want to dish away some of its pending free agents at the deadline.

Say the Wild decides to trade defenseman Kim Johnsson. He has $4.85 million cap hit. Over a 193-day season, his cap hit is $25,130 per day. Even if the Wild waited until the deadline to trade him, a team would have to take on 40 days of his cap, or $1.005 million.


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