Wild Sign Matt Cooke

Cooke won the 2009 Stanley Cup with Pittsburgh

Just minutes after the Wild traded Devin Setoguchi to the Jets, the team announced they signed free agent F Matt Cooke to a three year deal worth $7.5 million. His cap hit will be at $2.5M for each of those seasons.

Cooke is an awfully troubling signing. He has had several suspensions in the past for his foul play (the worst was his hit on Bruins F Marc Savard). He seems to have cleaned that aspect of that up, but his hit on Erik Karlsson this past year stirred that debate up again. So on this front, the Wild are taking a huge gamble with all of that baggage.

Besides the dirty play, Cooke has a very decent skill set. He is coming from a high powered Pittsburgh team, so that might skew his offensive stats. But he has been averaging around 15 goals with the Pens, and had eight this past year, which was a strike shortened season. He is very good on the PK, and can hold his own in the defensive zone.

He will probably slot on the third line as Cal Clutterbuck's replacement this fall. But my question is, if the Wild were going to deal Seto, why not keep Clutter who would be a much cheaper option than Cooke? They both are pretty similar in style of play.

There will be more from this move later on, but right now I can't even grasp where I stand with this signing. Lets all just give this a few days and let it sink in and see where we stand with this.