They need young, cheap talent - Robertson and Liljegren have a few more years of control, plus some good picks. With the Suter/Parise cap hits, they need cheap & young talent to hit the ice.
Liljegren is a walking arbitration nightmare waiting to happen, not strictly "cheap young talent". And Nic Robertson is...whatever. Dime a dozen skilled little winger prospect. He's rarely healthy and never seems to be able to firmly establish himself in the NHL. Later 2nd round picks don't do squat for Minnesota when it comes to the Parise/Suter buyouts. Those picks are more likely five years away from anything, if they pan out at all.
Hartman is also strong value for the Wild. He's a guy that they can even play on the top line, for $4M. Hard to beat that. And Gustavsson is still worth something, and important to Minnesota, in that MAF is old as dirt and almost certainly gone after this season. Wallstedt is a stud prospect, but goalies making that jump full-time, they're going to absolutely need a good stopgap in place - like Gustavsson.
It's just not nearly enough. Minnesota get hosed here.
Utah...they get honour of overpaying Marner. In exchange for what could still very much be a very strong 1st round pick, a promising young player (Doan is more like the sort of piece that Minnesota could use), and just throwing away accumulated 2nd rounder draft capital trade chips like nothing. I don't really see the appeal. Especially when they've already got guys like Keller, Schmaltz, Macelli.
The Leafs get to fix a bunch of problems with a cheap young forward, a super versatile gritty Top-9C/W, a prospective starting goaltender, clear a ton of cap space to spend like drunken sailors in UFA,
and get a potentially Top-15 1st round draft pick next year?
The whole Marner to Utah thing is...well, you can debate it or whatever. But if it's going to happen, this wouldn't be the way it looks. It'd need massive rebalancing, especially to include Minnesota. They'd need to be getting something they actually want or need. A lot of the things going to Toronto would have to be either axed from the deal altogether, or redirected to Minnesota.
