A goal signed

According to reports, the Minnesota Wild have locked down one of their two goaltenders for the next four years, and included a no-trade clause (with some stipulations), keeping that player with the team well past tomorrow's trade deadline. Now that the Wild have agreed to keep Niklas Backstrom between the pipes for them, does this mean that Josh Harding could be getting moved? Especially given that the Wild has a bit of a history of signing one goaltender to a nice contract, and then moving the other one shortly thereafter.

Obviously, tomorrow should be an interesting day, and the Wild may be preparing themselves for some moves, as they placed Craig Weller on waivers Saturday, and have now placed Peter Olvecky on the waiver line as well. This close to the deadline, a lot of these players are placed on waivers simply to clear up cap room and roster space before a move.

Of course, it's entirely possible that, no matter what the Wild does tonight and tomorrow, it won't really affect the playoff picture. Unless they can find someone who can provide an immediate offensive impact, the team will continue to struggle to put goals on the board, and try to rely on defense to win games. The old adage is always that defense wins championships, but they can't do that with a team that tends to have difficulty putting more than two pucks into the net.