Wild star reportedly played major role in bringing Eric Stall to Minnesota.

Their paths had cross once before.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 7 years ago
Wild star reportedly played major role in bringing Eric Stall to Minnesota.
Keystone Press.

It appears that one of Minnesota's top forwards played a major role in bring veteran Eric Staal to the organization in free agency.

In a recent interview with NHL.com, Staal revealed that much like he attempted to court Wild forward Zach Parise to the Carolina Hurricanes four years ago, this time around Parise played a big role in bringing him to the Minnesota Wild.

"It was kind of an honest conversation," Staal told the Wild website on Wednesday. "... He thought [there was] an opportunity there for me to play center and to play with some good players, he being one of them.

"We feel like our games could match up. I felt like that four years ago when he joined the Wild here when I was [with the Carolina Hurricanes]. I tried to get a hold of him to see if he wanted to come down and play there. He obviously signed here, and it was kind of shoe on the other foot for him reaching out to me, which was nice for me as a player. And I still feel the same; I still feel like our games, if we do end up playing together, we can match up well."

According to rumors, there wasn't a great deal of demand for Staal on the market, largely because he was looking for a role that would see him playing top six minutes. The Wild made a significant financial commitment to him, and now they will hope that Staal and Parise were right about the potential fit between the two men.

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