Edited Jan. 23, 2020 at 4:55 p.m.
Quoting: Yojimbo
If you are rebuilding your don't get rid of a supposedly good 28 year old on a good contract. You get rid of old guys and bad contracts.
Clearing a spot for Kaprizov is grasping at straws. We have to get rid of this great player on a great contract for a guy that never played one second of North American hockey... yeah... that's it... that's the reason. There are 4 top-6 wing slots and 8 wing slots overall, and that doesn't take injuries into account. Kaprizov is an excuse, not an explanation.
If you are rebuilding that's exactly the people you get rid of. You take the old guys and bad contracts so that you suck and get a good spot in the draft lottery. Luckily for the Wild, they've got this part down. Now they need to trade their good guys so that they can get back picks and prospects and start building their new core. That's how rebuilds work.
Look at the Rangers- they traded a bunch of good players on good contracts so that they sucked and they got a second overall pick out of it, as well as the returns for all of those guys and now the Rangers are pretty set. The Wild may not be able to seriously contend until the Parise and Suter contracts are up, so for me, that's when their window opens, maybe a little before if those guys retire or whatever. So, looking at their roster, they've got three players- Zucker, Dumba, and Brodin- who have (obviously not equal) trade value, whose contracts expire before that window opens, and who will be over thirty anyway and you won't want on a young team. It makes no sense to keep them when you don't have many prospects making noise to create that new core. If you trade them now while they've got term, you get a better return.
The only reason I brought up Kaprizov is because there isn't a potentially star talent that wants to play in the NHL for the Wild where Dumba and Brodin play. Krill Kaprizov is supposed to be part of the new core. If your mindset is to bring in assets to use for a rebuild, then Zucker makes perfect sense- a lot of people want him, he won't be under contract when the window is open, he'll have aged out of the window if he is still there, and he costs a team who is not going anywhere a decent amount of money to keep around. All of those things apply to Brodin and Dumba too (more so Dumba), but you still need someone playing defense for you, where you've got a cheap guy ready to come in and play in Zucker's spot, and that guy could potentially speed up your rebuild if he pans out. If Kaprizov sucks, well, who cares, you're supposed to be tanking.
Basically my point is the Wild need to tank regardless of what happens with Zucker, but it's harder to tank when he's here because he's good. Kaprizov really doesn't matter, but it sure is easier to commit to trading him when you've got a highly rated prospect stepping in who could replace him.