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Bruins add Coyle from Wild in hopes of secondary scoring boost

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Bob McKenzie reports on a pending trade between the Bruins and Wild that will send Charlie Coyle to Boston in exchange for Ryan Donato and a fifth-round pick.

The Boston Bruins have desperately needed scoring depth for the entire season and tried to address that hole on Wednesday evening by acquiring forward Charlie Coyle from the Minnesota Wild in exchange for Ryan Donato and a conditional fifth-round pick.

The 26-year-old Coyle has 10 goals and 18 assists in 60 games this season and is still signed for more full season at a salary cap hit of $3.2 million.

Even though the Bruins’ offense has been ridiculously top-heavy this season with almost all of their forward production coming from the trio Patrice Bergeron, David Pastrnak, and Brad Marchand, they still have one of the league’s best records and entered the day with the second-highest point total (78) in the Eastern Conference. With a little extra depth to take some of the pressure off of the big-three up front, and with the type of goaltending they have received from Tuukka Rask and Jaroslav Halak all season, they could be a dangerous team in the playoffs.

Coyle was born in Massachusetts and played his college hockey at Boston University, so this will be a homecoming of sorts.

From the Wild perspective, this is the second core player general manager Paul Fenton has traded during what is quickly becoming a bitterly disappointing season.

Even though the Wild entered the day in a playoff spot, they only have a one-point cushion over a pack of teams that is right on their tail (two of which, Colorado and Chicago, could jump ahead them on Wednesday night), lost their captain Mikko Koivu for the remainder of the season, and are on track to finish with their worst record since the 2011-12 season.

Most recently, they have lost nine of their past 10 games and been shut out in each of the past two.

Donato is obviously the key to this deal for the Wild and they have to be hoping that he can fully reach his potential with what should be a bigger role than he was getting in Boston. He has 11 goals and seven assists in 46 career games (but only six goals and three assists in 34 games this season) but has shown flashes of top-six ability. That is the good news. The bad news is he turns 23 in a couple of months and hasn’t yet solidified himself as a regular NHL player. That is obviously not old when it comes to a player’s peak, but it is definitely reaching the point where a prospect starts to become a suspect if they do not start to produce more consistently.

A few weeks ago the team sent Nino Niederreiter to the Carolina Hurricanes in exchange for Victor Rask, a deal that has backfired tremendously in the short-term (and probably will in the long-term as well).

These two deals together, combined with the injury to Koivu, should be a pretty loud message to the team and fans as to what they should expect over the new few days -- the Wild are sellers, and now it is just a matter of who else goes out the door before Monday.

Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.