Bonjour from one of my favorite places, Montreal, where I’m readying to cover my 12th NHL Draft (Buffalo, Boston, Calgary, Florida, Toronto, Nashville, Carolina, Ottawa, Vancouver, Columbus, Ottawa and Montreal).

Twelve.

By far my favorite league event to cover. That’s because every single person in hockey shows up at the Draft, so as a beat writer, there’s no better place to be. It’s the one pro Draft where you basically have to be there to cover it because all 30 teams’ Draft tables are on an arena floor.

And usually, the teams I cover swing big deals at the Draft. The Wild’s traded for Pavol Demitra and Todd White at the Draft, and set up the Manny Fernandez and Marek Zidlicky deals.

And the Panthers, to quote Jacques Lemaire, “Oh … My … Lord.” They were busy bees at every Draft, especially Bryan Murray, who acquired Trevor Kidd at the Boston Draft in ‘99 and Roberto Luongo and Olli Jokinen for Mark Parrish and Oleg Kvasha at the 2000 Draft.

The Panthers, with Chuck Fletcher playing a big part, acquired Val Bure and Jason Wiemer for Rob Niedermayer at the ‘01 Draft. Rick Dudley traded the first overall picks at consecutive drafts. The Panthers tried to take Alex Ovechkin at the ‘03 Draft — one year before he was eligible. They also, after I was covering the Wild, traded Roberto Luongo and Lukas Krajicek for Todd Bertuzzi and Bryan Allen at the Vancouver Draft and acquired Tomas Vokoun the next year.

Fletcher hopes to make some similar noise as the Wild’s GM, and we will see. He did learn from the one of the best, eh, blockbusterers in NHL history in Bryan Murray, and whatyaknow, BM the GM is about to execute yet another with some team with Dany Heatley.

As I’ve written, Fletcher doesn’t have a ton of assets he can deal, so there’s got to be the right fits and, as he said during last night’s interview, “the reality is there aren’t fits with most teams most of the time.”

Wanted to jump on and give you info on three events:

1) The Wild will have its Summer Bash on Thursday night at Rice Park in St. Paul from 6-9 p.m. Hockey-themed stuff, food and lots of autographs as the Wild broadcasters will be there, along with Nordy, Brad “Bomber” Bombardir and current players Derek Boogaard, Cal Clutterbuck, Colton Gillies, John Scott and James Sheppard — barring getting traded, of course

2) Tom Reid’s Hockey Pub in St. Paul will be hosting a Draft party Friday night starting at 5:30 p.m. The VERSUS telecast starts at 6 p.m. and Reid will have lots of information on all the draft-eligible players, as well as food and drink specials. And bring your laptops so you can still pay close attention to startribune.com/wild and startribune.com/russo, which will have live up to date information as it happens from the draft floor.

3) I’ll be hosting a live online chat on startribune.com Friday at 10 a.m., so be there or be square.

OK, I’m going to go stalk NHL execs, including “Chucky,” outside the Board of Governors Meeting now.

Talk to you later, I am sure.

(corrected)

Thought I’d start a fresh blog, so here be it:

Here are the weekend stories starting with Fletcher’s looking to wheel and deal 

AND

Josh Harding being open to a trade because he wants to be a No. 1

I’ll come on here later and blog some more. I’m hoping to talk to Chuck Fletcher today, but I can’t make any clearer that trading for Dany Heatley won’t be easy because of the amount of assets he’d have to give up. Plus, Heatley would have to waive his no-trade clause to come here and of the list of 10 or so teams he gave Ottawa, it’s unclear as to whether Minnesota’s on that list.

Also, I know 100 percent, Ottawa IS NOT interested in Josh Harding. Bryan Murray made his goalie trade when he acquired Pascal Leclaire at last season’s trade deadline.

Also, I keep getting emails and see comments on the stories about the idea of trading Niklas Backstrom. Remember, he’s got a two-year no-trade clause, then if he reaches certain criteria, that no-trade clause continues.

Lastly, here’s an interesting link on the Habs’ web site examining the Draft. The Wild has had more man games from draft picks than any team in the league since 2000. Of course, there’s lots of ways this can be analyzed; as an expansion team, the Wild had no other choice, plus Doug Risebrough’s philosophy of just sticking kids of the team.

That is a thing of the past, by the way. Chuck Fletcher has made extremely clear kids can be on the team, but they will have to MAKE the team. For instance, because Colton Gillies was on the roster for more than 40 games, his seven-year free agency clock started. However, if he plays in the minors next season (good possibility), that DOES NOT count toward free agency but his entry-level contract.

I bolded the above graph because it is now correct. I had it way wrong initially. 

Because James Sheppard has played 160 games, he can’t play in the minors without clearing waivers.

Anyway, hopefully I’ll be back on later. I’ll be mostly out of pocket Tuesday unless there’s hard news. I’m leaving for the Draft, but purposely taking the long way to Montreal.

Just returned from the Wild’s press conference to muse about the 10th Draft in franchise history.

The Wild owns the 12th pick in next Friday’s first round, then three fourths, a fifth, a sixth and a seventh Saturday. It has no second- or third-round pick currently, although Chuck Fletcher is trying to attain more picks. He’d like to make some moves in advance of the Draft with the hope of giving him more bullets in the chamber — either to use at the Draft or offer in trades.

I’ll write a lot more about the Draft in Sunday’s newspaper and starting middle of next week, but as I’ve been alluding to on here, there’s almost no way the Wild can move up in the Draft unless it gets a second and/or third and there’s a very good chance the Wild moves down.

When it gets to 12, if there’s three or four players still on the Wild’s list that the scouts all love, there’s a great chance Fletcher rolls the dice and moves down if it means still potentially getting one of those players and adding a player or second- or third-round pick. As I wrote a few days after Fletcher was hired, he feels draft picks are the lifeblood of franchises. He says “they’re currency,” and the more you have, the more flexibility you have to either take players with them or wheel and deal. Right now, he’s severely hamstrung.

As he said today, “Championships are won on the Draft floor.”

Like I said, I’ll write a lot more about the Draft next week. I had lunch last week with Tommy Thompson, and a great deal of the eventual story next week will be on the local Minnesotans — Jordan Schroeder, Nick Leddy and Zach Budish.

And I can promise you, whether you like it or not, the Wild will 100 percent go by their list. They will not be drafting a player based on where he’s from. If they get to 12, and No. 8 on their list is still available and Schroeder or Leddy is 9, they will definitely take 8. And that’s what every team in this league would do.

As for Marian Gaborik, Chuck Fletcher said he “intends to push the process forward next week so we try to get a sense from them” whether or not he’s willing to re-sign in Minnesota.

Fletcher won’t put a deadline on Gaborik, but he did say, he’s working the phones on trades, and a lot of what he does will depend on what he hears from Gaborik. There are things out there “that make sense for us,” he says.

If Gaborik isn’t re-signed by the Draft and a trade is available to make, Fletcher may just have to pull the trigger even if it means definitely closing the door on Gaborik.

“Gabby’s a great player, but at this point, we’re two weeks from free agency and we have to look at every avenue to improve our club,” Fletcher said.

As I’ve said over and over again on this blog, almost always when it gets to this point, the player tests the market – and understandably so. However, I have a sneaking suspicion Fletcher will make a bona fide contract offer to Gaborik next week.

Fletcher definitely loves Gaborik as a player and feels he’s worth the risk of a legit contract — probably a four or five-year deal in the $7 million range. Then, it’ll be up to Gaborik. And Fletcher would almost certainly prefer to re-sign Gaborik and give up no assets rather than trade for a marquee player and give up a boatload of assets.