Central Notes: Wild, Rantanen, Letestu

After dealing away Jason Zucker to Pittsburgh and firing Bruce Boudreau as head coach, the Wild have turned things around and have gone 6-2 under new bench boss Dean Evason.  As a result, they’ve pulled themselves right back into the playoff picture.  However, don’t expect GM Bill Guerin to be content with that.  In an appearance on Sportsnet 590 (audio link), he indicated that there is “absolutely there’s going to have to be some change somewhere within the organization”.  How much of that there is will likely be affected by how they finish this year but for starters, it’s quite possible that the Zach Parise trade talks get revisited this summer while they have more than $10MM in money coming off the books with Alex Galchenyuk and Mikko Koivu slated to be unrestricted free agents.  Former GM Paul Fenton made a few changes last year while Guerin has started to put his own stamp on the team but the changes don’t appear to be done just yet.

More from the Central:

• Avalanche winger Mikko Rantanen skated before practice for the first time since sustaining a shoulder injury last month, notes Mike Chambers of the Denver Post. However, he’s still likely a little while away from returning considering that he still has to get cleared for contact.  Still, it’s at least a little bit of good news on the injury front for Colorado which is something they haven’t had much of lately; on top of also being without goalie Phillip Grubauer, wingers Andre Burakovsky, Matt Calvert, and Colin Wilson plus center Nazem Kadri, blueliner Cale Makar will also miss his second straight game tonight against Anaheim due to an upper-body issue.
• Back in October, Jets center Mark Letestu was slated to miss six months after being diagnosed with myocarditis which effectively ended his season. Or so it seemed.  Scott Billeck of the Winnipeg Sun reports that the veteran has resumed skating and head coach Paul Maurice indicated that it’s a possibility that Letestu returns this season.  Having been out for so long though, the 35-year-old will need a while to get back up to speed in terms of his conditioning but the fact that he has received the green light from team doctors is certainly good news.