Wilderness Walk: Guerin looking for top-six forward

The Minnesota Wild aren’t scoring enough goals to win games. It’s a simple problem that they have had all season long — compared to the other short-lived issues like goaltending and penalty killing — and while we can most likely chalk up the drop in production to losing some key forward for a significant amount of time due to injury, the team might just be lacking offensive talent.

That is why GM Bill Guerin is reportedly looking for not just any forward, but someone to step into the Wild’s top-six immediately.

It was hidden a little bit in Michael Russo’s latest post at The Athletic, but this little tidbit was only assumed but not reported on to being this specific. We knew that because of Kevin Fiala’s departure, the Wild will probably try to reinforce the roster at forward, but now Guerin is specifically targeting a top-six player.

The Wild general manager could be looking all he wants, but it is not like the team is in a position to trade from their strong prospect pool for a rental right now, so the forward will most likely have at least another year on their contract. Who that could be? I guess we might find out eventually.

That’s Wild

• Every team’s MVP so far this season. You can probably guess who the Wild attribute most of their success to. [ESPN]
• Every jersey number has a story so here’s why every member of the Wild wears the number that they do. [The Athletic]

Off the trail...

• The Pittsburgh Penguins really have a problem blowing leads right now. [Pensburgh]
• The Edmonton Oilers really suffered an unfortunate injury and had an incredible gaffe in their loss to the New Jersey Devils. [Yahoo Sports]