The NHL’s trade deadline occurred on Monday afternoon, and as is frequently the case with any sport’s trade deadline, there were moves all over the league. One such move involved a pair of Central division squads, the Minnesota Wild and Nashville Predators, coming to terms on a deal that saw right wing Mikael Granlund head to Nashville.
Granlund has played for Minnesota since coming to the NHL in 2012, and in each of the last two years, the Finnish forward had 69 and 67 points. This season, Granlund has 15 goals and 34 assists in 63 games, and is heading from a Wild squad fighting for a postseason spot to a Predators team firmly in the postseason.
The issue is trade deadlines can really be unforgiving, and while the transactional aspect of sports can be fun for fans, it involves humans having their lives uprooted, often because someone(s) other than them decided to move them. That happened with Granlund. Wild GM Paul Fenton told reporters that Granlund received word that the deal was going down while his fiancée was in labor.
https://twitter.com/RussoHockey/status/1100153458253017091
Fenton also said that Granlund’s fiancée is in labor right now with the couples first child. Said he felt bad that the trade had to happen today.
— Dave Schwartz (@Dave_Schwartz) February 25, 2019
This serves as a reminder that sports can be really, really cold. Granlund is going to a better situation in Nashville, but having your life change like that while you’re in the process of becoming a parent for the first time is brutal.
