ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Minnesota Wild general manager Chuck Fletcher is not waiting around for next week's NHL trade deadline.
Fletcher, who swung a January trade to acquire goaltender Devan Dubnyk which jumpstarted his team, added a forward Tuesday night. Minnesota acquired left wing Sean Bergenheim from the Florida Panthers in exchange for the Wild's 2016 third-round draft pick. Minnesota also acquired a 2016 seventh-round draft pick in the trade.
"The sooner the better, obviously," Fletcher said during the first intermission of Tuesday night's home game with the Edmonton Oilers. "No sense waiting until the deadline. ... I think the emphasis for us was to find a proven guy with some playoff experience -- a guy that is willing to compete, go to the net, pursue pucks and Sean brings all those attributes."
Bergenheim, 31, has eight goals and 10 assists in 39 games for Florida this season. He averaged 14 minutes, 9 seconds of ice time while tallying 34 penalty minutes and a plus-2 rating for the Panthers. Bergenheim is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season and Minnesota will pick up the balance of the $2.75 million he's owed this season.
Fletcher said he had inquired about Bergenheim with Florida general manager Dale Tallon as far back as last season.
"He's a hard-working guy; good forechecker, goes to the net, plays a north-south game," Fletcher said. "There's not a lot of fancy play in his game, but he's a guy that's had a lot of success in the playoffs before and played pretty well for Tampa and Florida over the last few years. Obviously, brings some experience that will help us down the stretch here."
The Wild have climbed to eighth in the Western Conference playoff standings on the strength of a 13-2-2 run since acquiring Dubnyk from the Arizona Coyotes on Jan. 14.
But Minnesota has lost three forwards to injuries. Jason Zucker, who was second on the team with 18 goals when he was injured, will miss at least the rest of the regular season with a broken collarbone. Forwards Matt Cooke and Ryan Carter are also on injured reserve and Wild head coach Mike Yeo said Monday that Cooke and Carter aren't close to a return.
"Playing with 12 guys up front that are playing pretty well for us, but we get one or two more injuries we'll start to really maybe get into some issues," Fletcher said.
Bergenheim has 95 goals, 84 assists and 373 penalty minutes in 489 games over his nine-year NHL career. He has 12 goals and five assists in 23 career playoff games.
A 6-foot, 193-pound winger, Bergenheim is a native of Finland and joins a team with five Finnish players in Mikko Koivu, Niklas Backstrom, Mikael Granlund, Erik Haula and Michael Keranen. Bergenheim played with Koivu for Finland in the 2007 and 2008 World Championships.
"If we can find something that makes sense, we'll do it," Fletcher said of his approach leading to the March 2 trade deadline. "You always want to make sure you have enough depth. But we'll see. We're not interested in trading our first-round pick or our top prospects. But if we can move lesser assets to improve our depth we'll continue to look at it. Obviously, Sean was a significant acquisition for us and certainly takes a little pressure off up front."
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