It was not a decision he made lightly.

After trading a few draft picks - including this year's first-round selection - to the Arizona Coyotes for Martin Hanzal, Minnesota Wild general manager Chuck Fletcher called members of the club's amateur scouting staff to apologize, seeing as much of their hard work to date would likely be all for naught.

"Imagine being an amateur scout and you get a call basically on March 1 telling you, 'We’ve traded our first-round pick,' after you’ve been scouting for five months," Fletcher said, per Michael Russo of the Star Tribune. "You’re out slogging miles, and a lot of your focus is on the first round, it is on the top guy because that’s how the franchise is judged, that’s how you’re judged.

"You’re thinking, 'All this time away from my family' ... it’s tough."

Amateur scouts spend most of their time on the road, traveling between junior and college hockey rinks in sometimes remote locations in order to take a look at players they'll put a stamp of approval on come NHL Draft day.

That the Wild are in position to go deep in the playoffs is a testament to work put in by the staff over the years, and Fletcher added, "hopefully we do something special this year that makes it worth it."

Copyright © 2017 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.