With a bevy of protectable assets both up front and on the blue line, Fletcher efforted trade negotiations with Vegas all the way up until McPhee's self-imposed deadline late Monday.
In addition to defensemen Ryan Suter, Jared Spurgeon and Jonas Brodin, who were on the Wild's protected list, the trade allows Minnesota to continue forward with Matt Dumba and Marco Scandella in the fold. For much of the expansion process, it was believed the Wild could lose a quality defenseman for nothing.
That won't be the case now.
"We knew we weren't going to be able to protect everybody. We tried to protect as many pieces as we can and I think, coming out of this, we're in pretty good shape," Fletcher said. "We have a real good defense core, we have a lot of depth up front; I think that helps us losing these two assets. We have good young players that have yet to hit the League, and we also have a lot of great young forwards on our team. Again, we knew we wouldn't come out of this unscathed, but we like our team and it's a good group going forward."
Fletcher was also faced with a numbers crunch up front. Mikko Koivu, Zach Parise and Jason Pominville were required protectees because of no-movement clauses in their contracts. That left four spots for a group that included Mikael Granlund, Nino Niederreiter, Charlie Coyle and Jason Zucker, as well as Staal and Haula.
Granlund, Niederreiter, Coyle and Zucker occupied those four spots on the protected list, leaving Staal, a long-time captain of the Carolina Hurricanes and Minnesota's second-best scorer last season, available for Vegas.
The Wild desperately wanted to bring Staal back. Now it will, thanks to some shrewd maneuvering by Fletcher, who said he's had an agreement with Vegas for about a week to lay off Staal.
"I was able to talk to Eric early on, and I don't think Eric was ever in danger of not being with our club," Fletcher said. "We were comfortable with that."
Haula, a former University of Minnesota Golden Gopher, was Minnesota's seventh-round pick in the 2009 NHL Draft (182nd overall). He debuted in the League during the 2013-14 season, scoring six goals and 15 points in 46 games that year.
He has increased his goal-scoring totals each season since, including a 15-goal campaign in 2016-17. In 266 career games with the Wild, the 26-year-old Haula scored 42 goals, had 47 assists and was a plus-33.
Tuch, Minnesota's first-round selection in the 2014 Draft (18th overall), made his professional hockey debut last season, scoring 18 goals and 37 points in 57 games with Iowa. He also skated in six games with Minnesota, making his NHL debut in Vancouver on Feb. 4.
"Erik has been a big part of our team for a few years now and Alex Tuch was going to be a big part of our team," Fletcher said. "We've known for a while that we were going to lose a good asset or assets in this process and I think we did what I felt we had to keep, our defense core in particular, and also to protect a couple of our key forwards.
"We tried to manage the process the best we could. Vegas had a lot of leverage and I give George McPhee and [Vegas Assistant GM] Kelly McCrimmon credit; they got a couple good assets from us."
