While the explanation seems reasonable, the Minnesota Wild have turned a few ears with their latest decision regarding star Marian Gaborik.Amidst rumors of a deal in the works involving the Atlanta Thrashers, the Wild have announced Gaborik will sit the team's first two games out of the Christmas break. Those games are scheduled for Sunday against Chicago and Monday at Calgary.
It's not terribly surprising the Wild would avoid playing Gaborik in back-to-back games, even though they let him go back-to-back this past weekend against the Islanders and Blues. At this point, it's pretty obvious that Gaborik is still experiencing some issues with his groin, and there's no use pushing him any more than they already have.
However, Michael Russo of the Minneapolis Star Tribune sees something potentially up with the decision to keep Gaborik out of the lineup for both games after the break.
First of all, the Wild is clinging to eighth in the West. To sit its best scorer in back-to-back games against two quality teams seems a little strange. As has been reported on here, GM Doug Risebrough is, according to sources, conducting trade talks, and as I mentioned yesterday, somebody knowledgeable told me the Atlanta Thrashers have interest in Gaborik.The Wild offer, as I mentioned, a pretty reasonable excuse explanation for all of this.
The holiday roster freeze ends at midnight Saturday (technically 12:01 am Sunday), so by sitting Gaborik, you could be ensuring he doesn't get injured, either in the games, or in practice Friday or Saturday.
(Also, if Gaborik isn't going to be on the ice Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, you think he's playing New Year's Eve (Wednesday) against San Jose?)
"When he played back-to-back the other day, he got very sore. We were thinking of playing him in one game and not the other, but [GM] Doug [Risebrough] made the decision that he's going to make [Gaborik] rest for four days and hold him out. Hopefully he'll be back full-time after that."It makes sense, but there are indeed rats crawling all over this one.
The Wild are looking to move a player. A trade can't be made until 12:01am December 28. The player in question is being held out of games December 28 and 29.
But, yeah, no reason to read anything into this. Not at all.
If it weren't for Gaborik's wonky groin, this move would be immediately compared to a baseball team taking a player out of the lineup before a trade is announced.
