Article: How Does Jake Middleton Fit In the Wild's Evolving D-Core?

[Luke Sims]

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[MrCheatachu]

Last season Midsy had 157 blocks, and 99 hits and only played 67 games as a result of the abuse.  Even playing 67 games, he was 4th on the team in time on ice (1465:35, second among D behind Faber)

You dont have a guy like Midsy on your team because of the points he produces, he's out there to throw his body around, eat up minutes, and absorb some pucks.

Midsy aint going to turn into an offensive power house, but he's going to always be the big guy you can pair with a little guy to prevent the other big guy from taking liberties against your little guy.

Edited July 31 by MrCheatachu

[Imyourhuckleberry]

This article mostly aligns with where I'm at. Brodin has been such a key piece, I'm hopeful that he gets healthy early in the year. If they have all of the defensemen healthy, I'd like to see them play each pairing fairly equally with Spurgeon and Middleton paired frequently.

Spurgeon's play and leadership likely deserves top 4 minutes, so I could see them putting Brodin with him(at least for portions of games), but Brodin seems like he is Jiricek's ideal pairing, so I keep coming back to rolling with the young 2-way players(Buium/Faber) as pairing #1, and trying to keep Middleton and Spurgeon together due to their history together. Both rookies get an experienced linemate rather than throwing them on the ice together.

I could see a lot of mixing and matching this season, particularly in the first half of the year. For 3rd periods, they could choose to mix things up and limit minutes for guys they deem to be weaker with defensive play, but try to play fairly even minutes in most games, especially in the first 2 periods.

Obviously, they could go Brodin/Faber and Buium/Spurgeon as well, when healthy, pairing up Middleton/Jiricek in a reduced 3rd pairing role, but does that wear out the top 2 pairings when they lean on them heavily like they have with Faber the last couple of years? And would Middleton/Jiricek have the speed and defensive acumen to be an effective pairing for all 3 periods each night?

I think I'd favor the balanced approach when healthy.

[Pewterschmidt]

37 minutes ago, MrCheatachu said:

Midsy aint going to turn into an offensive power house, but he's going to always be the big guy you can pair with a little guy to prevent the other big guy from taking liberties against your little guy.

Well said.  And the Paul Coffey version of Midsy we saw in stretches last year was a pleasant surprise mirage that we shouldn’t expect to see with any regularity.  Like the GREEF year when Foligno and greeny were offensive dynamos.  The planets line up and crazy shit happens

[Citizen Strife]

A lot hinges on how Buium takes to 5-on-5 in the NHL.  If his offense is so strong to be denied, or he isn't a black hole defensively, giving him top-4 minutes would allow Middleton to slot into 3rd pair quite nicely.  The only time he didn't fair well was when he and Bogo had no choice but to play 1st line minutes with nearly everyone else hurt.  Middleton is a great complementary defenseman, and will still be valuable until we know for sure what Buium and Jiricek are.

[1Brotherbill]

Middleton is an interesting thing.  The Wild trade Devon Dubynk to San Jose for a fifth round pick and Ryan Donato.  Later the Wild traded Kappo Kahkonen and the fifth round pick from San Jose back to San Jose for Jake Middleton.  Basically two starting goalies for Middleton.  Would say the Wild got the better end of that deal.  

Middleton is solid as a defenseman.  Makes few mistakes and blocks a lot of shots.  Which ties into his injury last year which before the injury is was scoring at a career high level after not so much.  Is he the future of the defensive core?  It appears that the Wild want to move on from Spurgeon, Brodin and Middleton in the next few years and develop Lambos, Faber, Buium and Jiricek as the top four.  Which on paper looks a lot better offensively, defensively it will be a work in progress. 

[Citizen Strife]

Imagine a Wild team doing what the Twins just did...I think I'd cry.

 

[mnhockeyfan03]

1 minute ago, Citizen Strife said:

Imagine a Wild team doing what the Twins just did...I think I'd cry.

 

The Wild should do what the twins did with a few players.  Rossi, Spurgeon, Brodin, Zucc, Trenin.  Teams a shakeup.  Not close to a contender with what they have. 

[0 Stanley Cups]

The Wild have more mobile defensemen with Spurg, Faber, Brod, and now Buium, I wish they had at least one or two more physically tougher defensemen in the 6'4" to 6'6" range to play against to balance out our defense.  Midsy and Bogo have good size and can play that role at times, Jiricek good size also, but likely not that as well.  Midsy was a great pickup from SJ and has played great the past four seasons, still not sure we needed to re-sign him for four more years.

At least with the addition of Jiricek, we have a young defensemen with size, but for some reason we never seem to draft any D with size even if they are longer term projects.  More size/grit on the backend please BG.

[Kato AK]

7 hours ago, Citizen Strife said:

Imagine a Wild team doing what the Twins just did...I think I'd cry.

 

I was thinking that Guerin has a chance to be the most popular guy in MN today by making a decision with Rossi (Sign him or Trade him), but I don't have that kind of faith in Bill.

[mnfaninnc]

I like the pairing of Midsy-Faber to start out the season. I also like the pairing of Buium-Spurgeon to play mostly the entire year. 

That leaves Brodin coming back from a major surgery and Jiricek as the 3rd pairing. And I like that pairing too.

Honestly, I think our top 6 defenders can simply just roll. If I were Heinzy, this would be my primary lineup, but, I'd also pair every lefty with a different righty for some part of the season just to get familiar with each other. What we want is to make the playoffs and have everyone familiar with everyone.

Also, while on this, doing this with the forwards should also happen. I have no doubt that Sturm will get the odd shift with Kaprizov on his wing.

[Dango]

I think Jake is a very underrated player for what he brings to the Wilds D , and team  , he has a little bit of everything that hes really good at ,  we must be real when evaluating players and not let the rare anomaly that we see once every 10 years set the standard .   

[raithis]

On 8/1/2025 at 10:03 AM, 0 Stanley Cups said:

At least with the addition of Jiricek, we have a young defensemen with size, but for some reason we never seem to draft any D with size even if they are longer term projects.  More size/grit on the backend please BG.

Soini, Leskovar, and Kipkie would like to have a word with you.

None of them may ever make it as regulars in the NHL, but they certainly would qualify as longer term defensive projects with size.

Granted, the Wild typically miss out on the better defensemen with size because their firsts are typically in the middle of the round, and so they end up getting the better of the leftovers, but it's not like they never draft these types of players.

 

[0 Stanley Cups]

18 hours ago, raithis said:

Soini, Leskovar, and Kipkie would like to have a word with you.

I'll talk to these plugs at beer league in a few years😆

[raithis]

5 hours ago, 0 Stanley Cups said:

I'll talk to these plugs at beer league in a few years😆

Yeah, I don't have high hopes for any of them, but the point is that the Wild ARE drafting defensemen with size.

Since good players with size often go quickly, the options are typically draft a player high than projected because you don't think they will make it to a later round or grab players you think may do better than where they fell to.

Maybe one of these guys will become a serviceable NHLer, but the odds aren't good that any of them will.