A few days ago the Minnesota Wild attempted to poach young defenseman Jake Christiansen from the Buffalo Sabres. Originally signed by the Wild in 2020 as a prospect free agent, Christiansen was shipped to Buffalo last season in the Vincent Trochek trade. Buffalo unsurprisingly matched. Why even bother with the offersheet then?

In NHL Columbus last season, Christiansen was used for 24 games as injuries ravaged the team. He put up minimal points, but he did have quite a decent season in the AHL with 34 points in 50 games. At 24 years old, he's still tracking towards being a full time bottom pairing D in the NHL. Not a flashy player by any stretch, nor a household name, but a guy you can comfortably place on a lower D-pairing and maybe some 2nd unit special teams down the line. The Wild GM spoke about the situation:

"Just because Christiansen isn't a 1st round pick that is making an impact by 21 it doesn't mean he's completely worthless. A lot of people think that apparently. We approached it differently. He's not waiver eligible so he's a guy that can come in and play a few games at a time and be sent down. Save some cap. At the same time, maybe he develops a bit more as he's still under 25 and getting NHL games. That was the reason I sent the offersheet. I didn't expect to get him but you never know. His contract demands were clearly quite low but he was still unsigned so maybe there was a chance Buffalo wasn't interested with some of the additions on D they made."

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Elmer Ferguson Dynasty Year I Article 9/5

"Future buyout fund" bonus - $1,000,000 / $10,000,000