Christmas comes early Pouliot traded to the Habs.

RWD game me a heads up on this trade. I am excited about this trade because I have never been impressed with Benoit Pouliot, the kid was a waste of a uniform who put up little if any effort and I wondered why the Wild keep coming back with him in the lineup, now if the Wild can get rid of their other first round mistake James Sheppard the kid has shown nothing to date that leads me to believe that he will ever be anything more than a fourth line player. I don't think he has even earned the right to play on the Wild's fourth line in my humble opinion. If he is lucky he MIGHT score 5-10 goals this season. As a self confessed Montreal Canadians’ hater I guess it will take some time for me to get used to this move. I think that Guillaume Latendresse might be able to add some grit in front of the opposition net.

The thing I like about Wild general manager Chuck Fletcher is that he isn’t sitting around making excused like the former Wild GM Doug Risebrough did. I actually like the fact that this season Fletcher has went out and got Chuck Kobasew, Andrew Ebbett. It shows that Fletcher isn’t going to sit around and just let people wear a uniform.

The Minnesota Wild and Montreal Canadiens traded underachieving forwards Monday afternoon.

Montreal sent power forward Guillaume Latendresse to the Wild in exchange for forward Benoit Pouliot.

Latendresse, a 6-foot-2, 230-pound left wing, has just 2 goals and 3 points on this season after a 26-point season in 2008-09. In his first three season, Latendresse had put together back-to-back 16-goal seasons in his first two years in the League.

"Guillaume is a young, talented forward who has averaged 15 goals per season in each of his first three NHL seasons,” Wild GM Chuck Fletcher said. “At just 22 years old, he will add size and a scoring punch to our roster.”

Pouliot, Minnesota's first-round pick, No. 4 overall, in the 2005 Entry Draft, has just 2 goals and 4 points in 13 games this season. The 6-foot-3, 199-pound left wing has 9 goals and 18 points in 65 NHL games, spread across parts of four seasons.

Pouliot is presently out of the lineup with an upper-body injury. He last played on Nov. 13. Latendresse, meanwhile, has been relegated to third- and fourth-line duty for the Canadiens. He has not seen more than 9 minutes of ice time since Nov. 5. [Wild.Com] Props to [Mike Russo]