Minnesota Wild Shopping Yakov Trenin

Trenin, 29, signed a free agent contract with the Wild just about two years ago that carries a $3.5MM AAV.

He has largely occupied a bottom-six role in Minnesota, averaging 12:55 time on ice per game across his tenure in the Twin Cities.

Trenin has provided some value to the Wild as a penalty killer, playing 1:21 per game short-handed last season. He’s also an aggressive, physical presence, racking up 654 hits across his two campaigns in Minnesota. But has not been able to reliably land on the scoresheet. Across 158 games with the Wild, Trenin has just 38 points.

When Minnesota signed Trenin, there was likely some hope on the part of GM Bill Guerin that Trenin could reach the offensive heights he’d managed since 2021-22, when he was a consistent double-digit goal scorer with a career-high of 17. That has not materialized, as he’s scored seven and six goals across the last two seasons, respectively.

While Trenin is a valuable, hyper-physical fourth-line grinder, he’s simply too expensive for the Wild to retain given their ambitious plans to add to their roster. The fact star Kirill Kaprizov is set to carry a $17MM cap hit moving forward doesn’t help their financial flexibility, either.

But for teams flush with cap space who are looking to bolster their depth and add some bite to their fourth line, Trenin could be an attractive option.

What could make him an even more attractive trade candidate is the fact that his contract is slightly front-loaded. While it’s not a substantial cash difference at the end of the day, Trenin will only cost $3MM in actual salary in each of the next two seasons, with a $4MM salary paid to him the last two years. That’s how the $3.5MM AAV was reached, but Trenin will be below that in terms of actual material compensation for the rest of the deal.

Trenin does not have any trade protection on his deal, so based on last night’s report, it appears relatively likely he’ll be on the move at some point this summer if the Wild are able to execute any big moves.