{"id":630574,"date":"2026-03-04T02:27:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T02:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/630574\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T02:27:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T02:27:11","slug":"wild-acquire-michael-mccarron-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/630574\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild Acquire Michael McCarron \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Moments ago, the Nashville Predators announced that<\/a> center Michael McCarron<\/strong><\/a> wouldn\u2019t play tonight against Columbus for what they called \u201croster management purposes\u201d. Sure enough, he has been dealt to the Minnesota Wild in exchange for a 2028 second round pick, per Michael Russo of The Athletic<\/a>. The Wild<\/a> as well as the Predators<\/a> have officially announced the trade.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Once a first round pick in 2013 by the Montreal Canadiens, the 30-year-old McCarron grinded away in the AHL for several years, emerging as a full time NHLer in his late twenties. At 6\u20196\u2033, he is strong at the face-off dot, currently with a 52.8% win rate, coming in north of 54% last season.<\/p>\n

McCarron showed unusual scoring touch in 2023-24, recording 12 goals and 22 points in his best season, but since then has put up numbers synonymous with a pure fourth liner. He has five goals and 12 points in 59 games across the campaign. At even strength, McCarron\u2019s possession metrics are unsurprisingly below average, hovering around the 46% mark in recent years. Yet GM Bill Guerin is not adding the Michigan native with those traits in mind.<\/p>\n

Minnesota inherits McCarron\u2019s reasonable $900k cap hit which expires this summer. Rumored to be after a top six center, Guerin still has the space to make another splash, but the Wild are limited in assets as they go all in. After tonight\u2019s deal, they don\u2019t have a second round pick in the next three drafts, also losing this year\u2019s first in the Quinn Hughes<\/strong><\/a> blockbuster.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Acquired by Nashville from Montreal in 2020 in exchange for Laurent Dauphin<\/strong><\/a>, a top AHL scorer who departed the Habs organization but has actually returned to Laval, McCarron became a fan favorite in Nashville. Even if they move forward on a rebuild, they could have re-signed the towering grinder as he fills an important role. However, in a seller\u2019s market, a second round pick was enough to entice GM Barry Trotz to send McCarron to a divisional rival, although they\u2019ll have to wait two years to use it.<\/p>\n

The Predators lack anybody in the cupboard to replace McCarron\u2019s role, but October waiver claim Tyson Jost<\/strong><\/a> figures to slot in at 4C from here on out. Nashville will likely shop for a new physical face-off specialist this summer in free agency.<\/p>\n

A steep price to pay, Minnesota has again supplemented their bottom six, having claimed Robby Fabbri<\/strong><\/a> off waivers from St. Louis yesterday.<\/a> The Wild have struggled with defensive zone face-offs, and McCarron offers more of a mean streak than Nico Sturm<\/strong><\/a>. He has reached the 100 penalty minute mark in each of the last two seasons, and currently at 73, it\u2019s not impossible he could keep the streak going especially while motivated to endear himself to the Wild faithful.<\/p>\n

Wild head coach John Hynes<\/a> likely gave the green light on the acquisition, reuniting with McCarron, who broke through in 2021-22 with 51 games as a Predator under Hynes. He could also play alongside Yakov Trenin<\/strong><\/a>, a teammate then, the two hitting everything in sight.<\/p>\n

McCarron could make his Wild debut as soon as Friday, as the group travels to Vegas.<\/p>\n

Image Credit: James Carey Lauder-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Moments ago, the Nashville Predators announced that center Michael McCarron wouldn\u2019t play tonight against Columbus for what they…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":630575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[269002,3112,3111,1649,293,62,1650,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-630574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-michael-mccarron","9":"tag-minnesota-wild","10":"tag-nashville-predators","11":"tag-newsstand","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-transactions","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116168546490108101","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/630575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}