When the free-agent doors swung open in July, the team all over Minnesota Wild centre Kyle Brodziak was the opponent he had just played six angry playoff games against — the St. Louis Blues.
As the one-time Edmonton Oilers forward said, probably my “most hated team” after playing the Blues 30 times during the last six years with the Wild.
But the Blues wanted a new fourth-line centre after Marcel Goc and Olli Jokinen didn’t get the job done and Brodziak was a 10-year NHL veteran squeezed out of a job by salary-cap problems and Erik Haula in Minnesota.