Ahh ... we traded Rask for a Swiss Miss. Congrats.
IIRC wasn't this board pretty deeply in love with Nino in his draft year? I'm not really asking, because I remember pretty clearly that he was that summer's Gauthier ... you know ... bigger guy who supposed to mature into a proper power forward that everybody wants the Canes to take every single year. Yeah. He's fine. He's had a respectable career, albeit one with a slow start that saw his draft team lose patience. He's been a 30-something point, 3rd line kind of winger for most of his career, although I think he had a couple of sizzlers for the Wild a couple of years back. I know their fans gave up on him last year after a blasé season and he hasn't done anything this year to speak of. Kind of the perfect candidate for a change of scenery move, as is Rask ... so. Yay us, I guess.
As noted, this weakens our pool of centers even more, so I'm NOT thrilled with that. But seeing as how Victor seemed to have settled firmly into "not going to do anything ever" mode, whatever. Nino's got game and he actually plays solid defensive hockey so he's got that baseline over Rask in spades. This move doesn't make us that much better, but it doesn't make us worse either. Fine. Oh, and to Kahuna's point ... no. There's no more "potential" for this guy. He's fully baked and his upside is firmly established. He's a 3rd line forward forward on a decent team. Period.