News broke this morning that Minnesota Wild defenseman Marek Zidlicky waived his no-trade clause in order to go to the New Jersey Devils. Zidlicky's agent Larry Kelly confirmed the TSN report earlier but Wild general manager Chuck Fletcher, however, is denying that he asked the five-time 40 point defenseman to waive it.
From Michael Russo of the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
"I haven't asked Zid to waive his no-trade for any specific trade," Fletcher said by phone this morning. "I haven't called him and said anything's close.
"I can tell you for sure I'm planning on talking to other teams. We haven't traded Zid, we haven't made the decision to trade Zid at this point. I have not formally asked him to do anything because at this point I honestly don't have anything to take to him, I don't have anything for him to say yes or no too."
Fletcher said that's not to mean he won't trade Zidlicky today, tomorrow or by the Feb. 27 trade deadline. But he's not going to get boxed in to one team or necessarily boxed in to trading him by the deadline.
Zidlicky has one year remaining on his 3 year, $12 million contract after the end of the 2012 regular season. Minnesota is currently in 12th place in the Western Conference. The Devils would be the sixth seed in the Eastern Conference if the regular season ended today.
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