I can tell you how it SHOULD go

 The beginning of trade season has seen one team in particular get very active very early. The Calgary Flames have taken advantage of talent on their roster, a somewhat underwhelming season and a market thirsting for talent infusions and executed a couple of big trades, sending Elias Lindholm to Vancouver and Chris Tanev to Dallas. Noah Hanifin is likely next, and who knows what else is to follow. 

Meanwhile, NHL.com states that the Minnesota Wild "might not [trade Marc-Andre Fleury] if the Wild believe they can make the Stanley Cup Playoffs. They're in the hunt...". Whether or not the Wild trade Fleury likely has more to do with whether or not Fleury wants to be moved. He's had a Hall of Fame career, is on his 4th team and is approaching 40. I can't imagine he's all that willing to be traded again, even to a cup contender, and the Wild are likely willing to let him have his way. 

But calling the Wild "in the hunt" is the really strange part of all this. The Flames, the team that has been jettisoning, and will continue to offload, their top talent, are a point ahead of the Wild, with two games in hand. This is, of course, made worse by the Wild dropping their two most recent games against two teams immediately ahead of them in the standings - the Predators and Blues (who are also, it should be said, ahead of and tied with the Flames, respectively).

The Flames are on a 5 game winning streak right now, and if the Predators weren't in the midst of an 8 game run, they would be right up against the final wild card spot. The Wild have been an uneven mess for most of the season. They haven't had any streaks, except for a brief minute after the all star break, where you thought that they would be making a run towards the postseason.

I'm an advocate for teams always making every effort to reach the postseason. Anything can happen when you get there, especially in this era when the first couple of rounds may be against a rival to help you get your blood boiling, but I also understand the Flames desire to cash in where they are able. The players they are trading away aren't going to be on the roster next year, and they are only at the periphery of the postseason conversation. Surely, they could make it, but also if they don't they would have lost Tanev and Lindholm for nothing.

A bigger gulf between the Flames and Wild isn't the attitude for the postseason. Minnesota just doesn't have the high end tradeable assets that Calgary does. Outside of Fleury, the Wild's other players on expiring deals are names like Connor Dewar and Brandon Duhaime, which will not attract the same kind of attention. 

From a strict performance standpoint, it should be the Wild and not the Flames selling off pieces already. In the end, we might not see the Wild do much of anything while Calgary remains active, because things aren't solely determined by performance.