Quoting: Lenny7
Ah, f**k me and the OP then. Your depth at centre is fixed, and Talbot should win the Vezina. Cheers to you for being smarter than everyone else. Have a lovely day.
Not going to sit here and tell you the Wild centers are great, but the only departure is Staal, who was a shell of his former self last year. He's not good defensively and offensively he's an average 2C. Bonino outscored him 5v5 last season, so the drop off really isn't that severe. Combine that with the fact that Eriksson Ek should improve, Sturm/Rask is a better 4C than Koivu, and Bjugstad/Johansson should be more than enough to cover the hole from Galchenyuk leaving. At worst, the offense is going to be the same. At best, with Fiala improving and Kaprizov joining, it's going to improve.
The Wild also have one of the top defensive units in the league, ranking very close to, or at the top in metrics like HDSCA and xGA. The problem was our goalie tandem for a large part of the season was the absolute worst in the league, statistically. With league average goaltending last year, which is what Talbot is expected to provide (not Vezina caliber), the Wild would have been third in the central.
I know it's fun to bash the Wild for not having any high end flashy centers, but it sure is a really good thing there's more to success than having the best centers. No one is mistaking the Wild for Cup contenders, but neither are they a basement dwelling team.