Wild Close To Acquiring Nick Foligno

In a tight battle in the Central Division, the Wild continue to add depth pieces.  Frank Seravalli of Victory+ reports (Twitter link) that Minnesota is close to acquiring winger Nick Foligno from the Blackhawks.  Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic adds (Twitter link) that Chicago is only receiving future considerations in return.

The 38-year-old is in the final season of a two-year, $9MM contract.  Notably, Minnesota will be picking up the full cost of his $4.5MM cap charge as Chicago no longer has any remaining salary retention slots having used two earlier this week on Jason Dickinson and Connor Murphy and one last season on Seth Jones.  Meanwhile, Chicago will not replace Foligno as their captain for the rest of the season; NHL.com’s Tracey Myers relays (Twitter link) that winger Tyler Bertuzzi will become an alternate captain for the remainder of the season.

Foligno has had a quiet year offensively, notching just three goals and eight assists in 37 games while also missing 21 contests due to injury.  Meanwhile, his playing time has dropped sharply for the second straight year.  After logging nearly 18 minutes a night in 2023-24 in his first season with the team, Foligno is now down to just 12:28 per night despite seeing playing time on Chicago’s second power play unit and being part of their penalty killing rotation.  It stands to reason that his ice time will slide even more with this swap as he’s a strong candidate to be a fourth liner for Minnesota.

This move, assuming it gets finalized, would reunite Foligno with his younger brother, Marcus Foligno, giving them a chance to play together for the first time.  Marcus has spent a good chunk of the season on the Wild’s fourth line as well, so on top of getting a chance to play on the same team, they might even wind up on the same line once he returns from his lower-body injury.

Armed with ample cap space at the trade deadline for the first time in a long time, GM Bill Guerin is putting it to use.  This will be his fourth forward addition of the week having swung previous trades for Michael McCarron and Bobby Brink, while he also grabbed Robby Fabbri off waivers.  With the roster limit no longer being in effect as of today, Minnesota now has considerable forward depth to mix and match with for specific matchups or when injuries arise.  Even with those moves, they can still add more than $5MM in full-season salary, per PuckPedia, meaning that they might not be done just yet.