Matt Cullen scored a goal on Wednesday. Cullen has been superb this month with three goals and 12 points in 13 games. He's certainly helping his case as he might end up as one of this summer's top unrestricted free agents.

Wild GM Chuck Fletcher has no intention of trading Matt Cullen before the deadline. "Cullen's been a big part of our team," Fletcher said. "That's the type of guy every team in the league wants to add for a playoff run." Cullen is scheduled to become an unrestricted free agent this summer, so if the Wild were out of the playoff race, he'd probably be on the trading block. However, Minnesota isn't about to start trading away valuable players while they are fighting for the Northwest division title.

The trade deadline is April 3 and 36-year-old Matt Cullen is in the last year of a contract that would make him an unrestricted free agent if the Wild chooses not to re-sign him. That means, without fail, Cullen will be the subject of trade rumors for the next month. "When I signed here three years ago, I wanted to win a Cup here. I hope we can do that this year," Cullen said. "I love it here. My family's from here. It's a great organization. I love every part of it. It's easy to get ahead of yourself and start thinking about this stuff, and I know it will be on the forefront here before long as we get closer to the deadline. "I don't know what's going to happen. I know what I hope for, though." Cullen hopes that the Wild continues to push for the playoffs so he doesn't go anywhere. Players like Cullen, who won a Stanley Cup with Carolina in 2006, are hot commodities to playoff contenders this time of year.

Matt Cullen is just two goals away from 200. Cullen put himself within striking distance of that milestone with his two-goal, three-point night on Thursday. Cullen could become the 37th American-born player to ever reach that milestone. He's never been a dominant player, but the 36-year-old has been consistently solid throughout his career.

Matt Cullen scored his second and third goals of the season to lead the Minnesota Wild to a 3-1 victory over the Oilers in Edmonton Thursday night. Devin Setoguchi (third) also netted a goal for the Wild, and Cullen picked up his sixth assist of the season on that one. After a goalless first period, the Oilers led 1-0 on Ryan Smyth's second goal of the season before Minnesota tied up the game at 1-1 in the second and clinched the victory with two goals in the third.

Matt Cullen was injured with a little more than seven minutes left in the Minnesota Wild's 3-1 loss to the Ducks in Anaheim Friday night. Cullen started to trip and the Ducks' Kyle Palmieri didn't let up. Cullen, in an awkward position, went flying head first into the side boards. It didn't look good, according to Michael Russo of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "He was clearly hurt and skated right off and to the locker room after gathering himself," Russo reports. Coach Mike "Yeo didn't have an update right after the game. We will get one at practice on Saturday, but if he's hurt, we could very well be seeing Jason Zucker, Charlie Coyle or Johan Larsson."

If the 2012-13 season is wiped out, Matt Cullen's time in the league might be up. Cullen is supposed to be playing in the final season of his contract with the Minnesota Wild. By the summer of 2013, Cullen will be a 36-year-old unrestricted free agent. If there is no regular season, then that means he'll be at a particular disadvantage when compared to the younger players in every system that had the option to spend the lockout developing in the minors. "I worry that this could be my last chance to play in a Minnesota sweater, and I might not get it," Cullen said. "And then who knows? I know how the league works, and it's a young league." It would be an especially tough pill for Cullen to swallow because 2012-13 was supposed to be his chance to play for the new-and-improved Wild after missing the playoffs with them in each of the last two seasons.

Matt Cullen fears that the "window is very short" before the CBA battle gets "really ugly," but hasn't lost hope. "We're now on a slippery road," Cullen said, who also went through the 2004-05 lockout. "It's a scary thing. Of course, everybody wants to get the best deal. Everybody's frustrated and dying for this thing to work out, but once the full season is off the table, it's understanding all of a sudden everything goes south. After experiencing it last time, it's not fun once you start seeing more bickering and more getting entrenched in your ideas that, 'We're right. No, we're right,' sort of thing. Last time we saw that, and it went the wrong way fast." That being said, Cullen is still hopeful. He knows what the rhetoric is coming from both sides and doesn't care about it. In his view, the two sides are "extremely close" at this point and it would "absolute shame to lose more hockey when we're so close."

Matt Cullen doesn't sound optimistic about the odds of avoiding a lockout. "It's a little bit disappointing, but I don't really feel like it's surprising after going through the last one," said Cullen. "I don't know how that will be avoided. I don't think that they're close enough right now for anything." The current CBA is set to expire on Sept. 15 and it doesn't seem like there's been much - if any - progress made over the last week.

Minnesota Wild center Matt Cullen has pledged a $1-million gift to a children's hospital near his home town. Cullen and his wife, Bridget, formed a foundation in 2003 to fund children's health care needs, with an emphasis on cancer. The gift is going to the Sanford Health Foundation in Fargo, N.D., across the Minnesota border from Cullen's home town of Moorhead. The money will create a 3,000-square-foot, hockey-themed play and learning area for kids in the hospital. About three-fourths of the donation is for design, construction and furnishings, with the rest of the fund for a permanent endowment to support operations. The 35-year-old Cullen is entering his third season with the Wild.