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Draft day trade stunner: Sharks trade Devin Setoguchi to Minnesota for Brent Burns and more

Devin Setoguchi

San Jose Sharks right wing Devin Setoguchi talks during a news conference in the Sharks locker room, Thursday, May 26, 2011, in San Jose, Calif. The Sharks lost to the Vancouver Canucks 3-2 in double overtime to lose in the NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoffs Western Conference finals. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

AP

We’d been wondering if we would see a big trade at the NHL Draft in Minnesota and the home town Wild couldn’t let things go quietly. The Wild made the fans in Xcel Energy Center go wild when NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman announced that the Wild traded defenseman Brent Burns and a 2012 second round pick to San Jose for scoring forward Devin Setoguchi, prospect Charlie Coyle, and San Jose’s 2011 first round pick, number 28 overall.

The Wild add a scoring forward the likes of which they haven’t seen since Marian Gaborik was soaring up and down the ice and a guy that can produce in the clutch as well. At age 24, Setoguchi has shown flashes of brilliance scoring 84 career goals in four seasons. Last season he had 22 but had a career high of 31 three seasons ago. Being on a team that had him playing on the second line in San Jose kept his minutes down but the potential for big seasons is still there. He’ll get his chances to shine with the Wild.

Adding prospect Charlie Coyle gives the Wild a big center that they’ll watch continue to grow at Boston University. In his freshman season with the Terriers, Coyle scored seven goals and added 19 assists. Coyle also played for Team USA at the World Junior Championships last year.

For San Jose, they get the reliable rock on defense the team had sorely been lacking. Burns is an all-star player with the ability to defend well and score goals and play strong offensively. Burns is coming off his best professional season last year scoring 17 goals and adding 29 assists for the Wild while playing at -10 on the plus/minus. Burns also averaged a stunning 25:03 time on ice last year as the team’s top defenseman. The Sharks getting Minnesota’s second round pick in next year’s draft showed how much San Jose was looking to get Burns. Not getting more of a return there is surprising.

Burns will join the likes of Douglas Murray, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, and Dan Boyle on the blue line. The Sharks needed better play from their defense all around and now they’ve got it in Burns.

Making this deal all the more interesting is that the Sharks had just re-signed Setoguchi to a three-year, $9 million deal the other day. Sharks GM Doug Wilson said he didn’t have intention of dealing Setoguchi when he signed him to that deal and that this trade came up fast. We’re sure that won’t be over-analyzed at all in the coming days.

For now, this deal looks like a winner for both teams. The Wild fill a need with a scoring winger they desperately needed and the Sharks get the top flight defenseman they’ve been coveting for some time. Time will tell if Setoguchi can be the man the Wild hope he is and the Sharks will hope that Burns’ big year last year was the start of something really good.