VANCOUVER, British Columbia >> The clock had not yet hit 4 a.m. when Justin Brazeau’s alarm blared and he began the roughly 3,000-mile journey from Raleigh, N.C., where his Boston Bruins were set to play on Thursday night, to the Pacific Coast, where he would make his Minnesota Wild debut on Friday versus the Canucks.

While there was months of speculation about one or both of the Brocks from Minnesota — Nelson, from Warroad, and Boeser, from Burnsville — coming “home” to the Wild, Nelson went to Colorado and Boeser stayed put in Vancouver. The additions of Brazeau and Gustav Nyquist a week earlier were the only real moves that Wild general manager Bill Guerin made.

Guerin and the Wild stand by the idea that a trio of significant injured players — Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek and Jonas Brodin — will return before the regular season ends, and they will take a full, healthy roster into the playoffs.

With the trade deadline in the past, here are a few things of note from moves made, and not made, by the Wild and their rivals.

Size matters

Brazeau is officially listed as 6-foot-6, but some pundits were claiming he’s even 6-7 after Guerin acquired a second notably big body. In December, the Wild swung a deal with Columbus to bring hulking defense project David Jiricek to Minnesota.

It’s clear that size is a consideration as the Wild build for what they hope is a multi-year window of Stanley Cup contention.

“For his role, he’s got good numbers; 10 goals 10 assists,” Guerin said of Brazeau. “He’s got size. He’s good around the net. I just think the size really helps us.”

Wild coach John Hynes said Brazeau’s right-hand shot, and his hulking body, will be nice additions to the roster.

“The right shot was important,” Hynes said during the team’s morning skate at Rogers Arena on Friday. “We do think some of the size and puck skills that Braz has, I think those are things probably most importantly just maybe the fit of the players versus anything else.”

Central collisions

While the Wild were making relatively quiet moves, three of their Central Division rivals made notable revisions to their rosters.

Colorado added Nelson and former Wild forward Charlie Coyle. Dallas grabbed headlines by bringing in scoring star Mikko Rantanen, who began the season in Colorado, had a brief stint in Carolina, and now is back in the Western Conference.

And division-leading Winnipeg grabbed Brandon Tanev and Luke Schenn, in a further show that the Jets are all-in.

With the Wild lacking cap space to make any major moves without a dollar-for-dollar trade, or placing a player on long-term injured reserve, Guerin didn’t have many cards to play on Friday morning.

He said it was reminiscent of free agency in the summer of 2024, when dead money limited his options.

“You want to be involved, but you know what, we’re just at a different stage than those teams. We’ll have our day,” Guerin said. “It was the same thing this summer when you’re watching other teams load up…But I think we’ll show up and play the games and see how it checks out.”

Hynes said he paid little attention to the moves of the Jets, Stars and Avalanche, and stressed the importance of having the right roster, not just the flashiest roster.

“It truly comes down to having the right 20 (players),” Hynes said.

“You can add to your team and if it fits, it’s great. But I think you’ve seen some teams around the league can add a tremendous amount of players and free agents and things like that, and it doesn’t fit.”

Spending in summer

There were roughly 60 minutes to go before the trade deadline when Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet called Boeser aside for a private conversation during the team’s morning skate. With rumors of a possible trade of the former North Dakota standout running rampant, those in attendance wondered if this was the moment.

It turns out that they were just talking power-play strategy, Tocchet said after practice, joking that he would have preferred to trade away most of the reporters who cover his team instead.

When free agency opens in the summer, the Wild will finally have the $14.7 million in dead money — left over from the 13-year Ryan Suter and Zach Parise contracts — off their books.

And with the NHL raising its salary cap significantly, there will be money, and opportunity, to bring one or both of the Brocks back to their home state, if that interests Boeser and/or Nelson.

Guerin will almost certainly work to sign star forward Kirill Kaprizov to a long-term deal as well, which many expect to be in the $12 million or more per season range. With the Nyquist and Brazeau trades completed before deadline day, Guerin admitted Friday was a little slow for him, but he hinted that they will be bigger players in the summer.

“We got our business done earlier,” he said. “Would I have loved to have been in these bigger deals and stuff like that? Yeah, absolutely. It’s just not our time. Our time’s coming.”