2013 NHL Draft: Fasten Your Seat Belts

Photo tweeted by @DarrenDreger

In the days leading up to the draft, you were expecting a bunch of trades to be made. Several teams have tight cap space and still have several spots on the roster to fill. The wheeling and dealing should of been at a ridiculous pace by now, right? Wrong.

Since the end of the Stanley Cup Final on Monday, the most prolific trade was a laughable one between the Avalanche and Flames. Rumors have been flying around like no other this week, but none of them have come to fruition. One has to think that at some point, those deals will finally get done.

Going into this draft, the Wild appear to be one of the teams looking to heavily wheel and deal. Russo points out today that the team is shopping Cal Clutterbuck around and are trying to get back into the first round of the draft (their existing first round pick was sent to Buffalo in the Jason Pominville trade).

It has also been mentioned that the team could buyout Tom Gilbert, before the buyout window closes on July 4th, to clear his $4M off the cap. It would give them much more breathing room in the cap to work with this year (the team only has $3.6M in cap space right now).

Chuck Fletcher has a history of draft day trades. Every one of them should be considered a success. So should he choose to make a move on Sunday, the odds that the trade works in his favor are very high (credit for the previous trades also go to Brent Flahr, who has been the unsung hero of the Wild front office).

If nothing at all happens today, you can sure expect an abundance of moves tomorrow. Players and picks will be moved at a high rate, bringing Gary Bettman to the podium far too many times than we would care for.

Fasten your seat belts, folks. It is going to be a great day.

Required Draft Reading:

• Dan Chan, from Hockey Wilderness, tells us that the Wild need to draft physical defenseman and goal scorers. He also gives his Top 100 Rankings (this will come in handy tomorrow when Seth Jones and Nate Mackinnon are off the boards).
• First Round Bust has literally spent the entire month going over all things draft related, so just click on this link and you can find all their draft coverage.
• TSN's Bob McKenzie gives his draft rankings.
• ESPN's Scott Burnside tells us who to keep an eye on.

Follow Giles on Twitter @gilesferrell