Earlier this week, we blamed Colorado Avalanche GM Joe Sakic and the Vegas Golden Knights for contributing to the paralysis at the NHL trade deadline. That blame still stands, but the more we consider it, the more it seems we left one other culprit out of the lineup:

Chuck Fletcher of the Minnesota Wild, who might have been a damned super villain in his deviousness.

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Let’s trace the timeline.

On Feb. 26, the Minnesota Wild acquired Martin Hanzal, Ryan White and a 2017 fourth-round pick from the Arizona Coyotes for a 2017 first-round pick, a 2018 second-round pick, a 2019 conditional fourth-round pick and forward Grayson Downing from “Downton Abbey.”

Previously, the only other major trade for a forward was the Anaheim Ducks dealing a second-round pick in 2017 (with conditions) for Patrick Eaves on Feb. 24. Two days later, the Wild traded a second in 2018 and a first-round pick for Hanzal.

Now that the dust has settled, we see that only two teams traded first-round picks at the NHL trade deadline: The Wild for Hanzal, and the Washington Capitals for Kevin Shattenkirk.

On his Feb. 28 conference call, the morning after his trade with the St. Louis Blues, Capitals GM Brian MacLellan said that the Hanzal trade “set the market” for the Shattenkirk deal and for any subsequent trades.

Then we get this, from Elliotte Friedman’s post-deadline “30 Thoughts”:

When Arizona received three potentially high draft picks for Martin Hanzal and Ryan White, Colorado dug in, even more determined to hold strong on its high price for Matt Duchene and Gabriel Landeskog. It’s tough to tell at this time if anyone even came close, but the Avalanche certainly did not budge.

So the Hanzal deal affected the Shattenkirk return and may have tightened up the Duchene market, which as we noted was a leading cause for deadline paralysis.

Now, where does Fletcher’s deviousness come into play?

This is just a theory, but consider the facts.

The Wild gave up more for Hanzal than the New York Rangers did for Eric Staal last season. Fletcher said the key to any deal was that they didn’t tap their reserves of top young prospects. They didn’t. Draft picks were, like, whatever to him at this trade deadline. So he overpaid.

“Minnesota clearly stepped up,” Coyotes GM John Chayka said. “I can assure you that this was the top price in the market for Martin Hanzal.”

Fletcher said one of his motivations in the Hanzal trade was to keep him away from rivals in the Western Conference. But what if his sneaky little scheme went beyond that: What if Fletcher overpaid for Hanzal three days before the trade deadline to set the bar for the rest of the NHL, and in turn made it difficult for other rivals to get what they needed because the prices remained ‘Hanzal high?’

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You have two teams basically saying that their deadline was influenced by the Wild’s overpayment. How many more sellers used the Wild’s trade as a standard for setting prices?

That would be pretty devious by Fletcher. And, based on how things went down, apparently pretty effective.

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Greg Wyshynski is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Contact him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter. His book, TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE PUCK, is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold.

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