Veteran Marcus Foligno lamented the Minnesota Wild's inability to add at the trade deadline as the club struggles to tread water while battling key injuries.
"It's tough. We all want to win," Foligno told The Athletic's Michael Russo and Joe Smith. "We've been grinding for the past couple months, so it's just - I think you always want to see yourself as a team that's always going for it."
The Wild have been without Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek, and Jonas Brodin for an extended period and are 4-6-1 since returning from the 4 Nations Face-Off break. Minnesota was unable to shop before the trade deadline due to salary-cap limitations.
"We have a great team, but we're a different team without those three studs that we're missing," Foligno said. "Would you have liked to add or done something? For sure. But when you're kind of going with (general manager) Billy's (Guerin) plan and what we have to understand is it's moving chess pieces right now."
He added, "But you look at other teams bulk up, and it just kinda gives you a little bit of jealousy. We know next year is next year and that we'll have that off our plate finally, but it just feels a little bit frustrating when you always want to be in that position to succeed."
The Wild added depth forward Justin Brazeau and Gustav Nyquist but were mostly idle as the top teams in the Central Division - the Winnipeg Jets, Colorado Avalanche, and Dallas Stars - loaded up for championship runs. Minnesota is still comfortably in a playoff spot, owning a six-point cushion in the first wild-card spot.
The club has $14.7 million in dead money on the books due to the buyouts of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter. That total decreases to $1.6 million next season, and the Wild intend to be aggressive with their $20.9 million in cap space for the summer.
The Wild have made the playoffs in all but two of the last 12 seasons but haven't won a series since 2015.
