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Back in July, the word on the street was that almost every team in the NHL was looking to get better. The Pittsburgh Penguins were the only real sellers this offseason, with the rest of the league's bottom-feeders holding tight. The Buffalo Sabres, Chicago Blackhawks, and San Jose Sharks decided against selling off talent. Meanwhile, the Utah Mammoth and Anaheim Ducks spent big, bringing in players like JJ Peterka and Chris Kreider. This state of affairs leads one to wonder: What's with the lack of teams looking to submit an offer sheet to Marco Rossi? Rossi, a restricted free agent, is stuck in a stalemate with the Minnesota Wild. On last week's "Worst Seats in the House" podcast, Michael Russo reported that the two sides haven't negotiated since before the start of free agency. We can determine from that nugget that the divide between the two sides remains around $2 million per year apart, and perhaps more. If teams are trying to get better, then a top-six center would be a great place to do it. Upgrading at the most important position for the cost of ~$7 million, as well as a first- and third-round pick, is fairly reasonable. There's not a lack of potential suitors, either. 18 teams can put up the draft capital to put an offer sheet on Rossi's table. So why haven't they? GMs tend to dislike stoking bad blood for no reason, and Bill Guerin has vowed to match any offer sheet. Still, at the same time, he insists there's a price point they don't want to go above. Would Guerin be willing to sign, say, a four-year, $26 to $28 million deal that would walk Rossi up to free agency, committing to a hefty cap hit without buying any UFA years? It doesn't seem like there's any downside in calling Minnesota's bluff. This could change at any moment, especially as we inch closer to training camp, but it seems like there's no urgency for these teams that want to improve to actually try to improve. There must be a reason, so let's break down these 18 teams that are able to sign Rossi and try to figure out what the hang-up is. Group 1: Not Enough Cap Space Boston Bruins, Los Angeles Kings, Montreal Canadiens, New York Islanders, New York Rangers, St. Louis Blues, Winnipeg Jets These teams are projected to have fewer than $5 million in cap space once the season starts, making it difficult to move enough around to accommodate a budget of $6.5 to $7 million. Among the teams on the list, that's probably most unfortunate for the Bruins. Boston has one of the league's best players in David Pastrnak and one of the best goaltenders in Jeremy Swayman. Their roster is built to win now, but their top-six centers consist of Elias Lindholm and Morgan Geekie. Rossi showed last year what he can do with an MVP-caliber shooter, and his presence would give the Bruins an Under-25 1-2 punch with James Hagens for the long term. Alas, money's tight. Group 2: Too Bad To Risk It Chicago Blackhawks, Nashville Predators, Pittsburgh Penguins, Philadelphia Flyers Realistically, these teams aren't making the playoffs next year. Even in the case of a team like Nashville, what's the point of potentially giving away a lottery pick unless you know you can get out of the gutter? Dragging an aging, expensive roster into the playoffs doesn't sound that smart. Group 3: No Pressing Need Columbus Blue Jackets, New Jersey Devils It's no surprise to see the Devils here, with Jack Hughes, Nico Hischier, and Dawson Mercer able to play down the middle. It's a bit surprising to see the Blue Jackets, but that sounds right. For next season, Sean Monahan and Adam Fantilli don't seem like the best depth, but with top prospect Cayden Lindstrom in the system, the Jackets aren't far from having a young, legit pair of top-six centers. Are they going to want to spend $7 million on what will likely be their third-line center? Group 4: Bigger Fish To Fry Anaheim Ducks The Ducks have Leo Carlsson and Mason McTavish... except that they don't. McTavish, like Rossi, is an RFA and needs a new contract. Could they use an upgrade at center? Why not? Rossi is currently an upgrade over McTavish and would give them a strong top-nine up the middle. But you probably shouldn't throw offer sheets around when you've got a prominent RFA of your own able to take offers from other teams... including the Wild. Group 5: Besties, WTF Are You Doing??? This leaves us four teams that haven't put in an offer sheet to Rossi, or at least, not to our knowledge. And in all four cases, it's very difficult to understand why. The Buffalo Sabres may have three players, Tage Thompson, Joshua Norris, and Ryan McLeod, who can play center. Still, Thompson's defensive abilities and faceoff acumen might suggest a move to wing full-time would be better. It's not like Buffalo doesn't have talented players, but they've never been able to have it coalesce into a real hockey team. A two-way center with skill makes a whole lot of sense, particularly after losing some skill in Peterka this offseason. The Calgary Flames' apparent disinterest in Rossi is probably the most confusing in the NHL. Their top two centers, Nazem Kadri and Mikael Backlund, are 35 and 34, respectively. Connor Zary, another RFA this summer, is the same age as Rossi, but scored just a half-point per game. They have zero top-six caliber center prospects. Calgary has $15 million in cap space and a Wild-like allergy to bottoming out, with just one top-five pick (No. 4, 2014, Sam Bennett) in their 45-year existence. It defies understanding. This is Year 7 of Steve Yzerman with the Detroit Red Wings. He has zero playoff appearances and has drafted one forward who's better than Rossi. They could use a No. 2 center between Dylan Larkin and Marco Kasper. They fell just short of the playoffs last year. Shouldn't he be feeling some pressure to win? To upgrade down the middle? We wrote about this possibility as free agency opened, but our point still stands: Rossi's a good way for the Utah Mammoth to help themselves and hurt the Wild. They've got just enough cap space to make it happen, they can perfectly slot Rossi between Logan Cooley and Barrett Hayton, and the Mammoth have a coach in André Tourigny who loves and believes in Rossi. It's hard to believe Rossi wouldn't sign on the dotted line to play for him. Realistically, there aren't a dozen suitors for Rossi, not at this stage of the offseason. But even now, there are four teams that it feels like a no-brainer to take a flier on Rossi with an offer sheet and see what shakes loose. The Sabres, Flames, Red Wings, and Mammoth should want to take a step next season. So what's the hold-up to getting better? The longer this drags on, the more confusing it gets.

Adam Benak is the type of prospect that sports fans love to root for; supremely talented and hard-working, yet undersized and therefore overlooked. So, it’s not surprising that Minnesota Wild fans, and the writers here at Hockey Wilderness, instantly became enamored with Benak after the Wild picked him in the fourth round last month. Our staff voted Benak as the Wild’s tenth-best prospect, and by all accounts, the hype just might be real. I’ll admit that I didn’t have Benak on my ballot, but it’s impossible to ignore his high ceiling as a prospect. He has proven that he can dominate at the junior level. Last season was special for the 5-foot-7 forward from Plzeň, Czech Republic. He started it off last summer by leading Czechia to a silver medal in the Hlinka Gretzky Cup, finishing second in the tournament in scoring with four goals and seven assists in five games. Later, he joined the USHL’s Youngstown Phantoms, where he produced 17 goals and 42 assists in just 56 games. Those numbers led Youngstown in scoring and were good enough for ninth in the entire league. After Youngstown was eliminated from the playoffs, Benak joined Czechia halfway through the U18 World Championship, where he caught a lot of people’s attention with his play and produced a stat line of two goals and five assists despite only playing four games. Benak sees the ice really well and is often steps ahead of the play. His anticipation enables him to make quick passes when he gets the puck, find space at the right time to become available for a pass, win races to loose pucks, and quickly apply pressure when opposing players find themselves in a vulnerable position. He has high-end straight-line speed that he generates with a powerful stride, as well as quick feet that enable him to maneuver in tight and find space and seams to make plays. Benak also has lethal hands that he uses to handle the puck at speed or in traffic, and is a deft, accurate passer. While he spent most of this past season as a center, he’ll more likely be a winger in professional hockey. As you can see, he does a lot of his damage in space and when exploiting lanes from the outside or in transition. Benak is also lethal on the power play. These are skills that translate up levels, but it’s also fair to question if he can become more than a perimeter player and power-play specialist in professional hockey. While the game seems to be trending toward more skilled, faster play, there’s only so much damage a player can do from the perimeter. Over 80% of NHL goals are scored from the slot or net-front, and so the key to consistent success remains finding ways to get the puck to that area. That doesn’t mean a player like Benak can’t find success. His ability to use his skating, vision, hands, and passing will enable him to create lanes and exploit seams no matter what league he plays in. However, perimeter players won’t be able to drive a line by themselves and need to be paired with possession drivers and scorers that can pull defenders to them and create space in the zone. In an era of video coaches and detailed scouting reports that prepare teams for their opponents, Benak will need to be able to effectively find space in the middle enough to keep defenses from keying on his perimeter play. Benak reminds me of former center David Desharnais, a diminutive player (listed at 5-foot-7 on NHL.com) with superb hockey sense and playmaking ability that managed to carve out an NHL career that included 524 regular-season games. To understand how he did so, I watched some film on Desharnais and saw that he and Benak share some comparable traits as players. Desharnais did a lot of his damage with the man advantage and often hung out on the perimeter, but not exclusively. He used his anticipation and play-reading ability to find space on the inside, maneuvering into space as it opened up, but he wasn’t stationary when he was in front of the net. He’d weave in at the right time to receive a pass or get a rebound opportunity, but managed to largely avoid battles with larger defensemen that would likely take him out of the play. While being unable to establish a consistent net-front presence is limiting for smaller players, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a role for them in the right situation. Desharnais weighed more than Benak, but he didn’t have the same skill level and wasn’t nearly as good of a skater. Despite this, he managed to find a niche in the NHL. I envision a development track where Benak puts on some weight and continues to capitalize on his speed, skill, and hockey sense to adapt his game to higher levels and larger, faster opponents. He should be able to slice and dice to execute quick plays to break down defensive structures and exploit mistakes as a pro. Suppose he can learn to use his speed and quick feet to weave through the offensive zone without the puck and get to the middle at the right times. Then, he’ll be able to overcome his smaller stature and become a positive possession player in addition to being a playmaker. There are multiple ways to be tenacious as a forechecker, and consistently forcing defensemen to make quick decisions can be just as effective as physical play. With Benak’s straight-line speed and willingness to pursue the puck in all areas of the ice, Benak has a chance to be an effective player on a line with possession-driving teammates. That’s what the Wild are also banking on, but there are some big “ifs” when it comes to Benak’s development into a professional player. After all, as Jeff Marek often says, “smaller players have to prove that they can play, while big players have to prove that they can’t.” Benak recently signed with the OHL’s Brantford Bulldogs for the 2025-26 season, and could very well head to the NCAA after that. Following the newly available USHL-OHL-NCAA ladder, Benak would have the opportunity to develop physically and learn to play against older players on his way to professional hockey. Although he has limited experience doing so in Czechia, it was on larger ice surfaces and in an environment vastly different from professional hockey in North America. The Wild have until the summer of 2029 to sign him, and I would guess that they’ll wait as long as they can to lengthen his development path and give him the best chance to develop. Regardless, it should be a lot of fun to track Benak’s progress (and highlight reels) over the coming seasons. You can bet there will be a lot of fans rooting for him along the way.

January 20, 2025: Section 330, Row 13 at Ball Arena in Denver, Colorado. It was a matinee game for the Minnesota Wild on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and they were visiting their heated rivals in the Mile High City. Row 13 in the upper deck at Ball Arena is way up there, but I was fortunate enough to score a last-minute ticket to go watch the Wild beat up on the Colorado Avalanche in front of a packed house. As I settled into my seat just before puck drop, I was excited to watch Marc-Andre Fleury in person for most likely my final time. But halfway through the first period, my eyes became glued to a young, tall, rangy defenseman in white. It was the Wild’s first power play of the game, and David Jiříček received a one-timer opportunity from the left circle, a spot Alex Ovechkin has made famous over his career. He wound up, his stick nearly tickling the rafters among the litany of retired maroon and white jerseys, and unleashed a slap shot that missed the net entirely but rattled the glass beyond the net with a sound not typically heard in an NHL arena. It was just different. Jiříček played the game of his young career that night, helping lead the Wild to a 3-1 victory over their divisional rival. That sort of game-breaking talent is why the young Czechian defender lands at No. 4 on our Wild prospect rankings this year. It’s also why Jiříček is unquestionably the biggest wild card on Minnesota's roster entering the 2025-26 season. Sure, there are tantalizing other options, such as fellow prospect Danila Yurov’s potential to stick at center in the NHL. Still, nobody’s range of outcomes varies more than Jiříček's this season. Jiříček arrived in Minnesota early last season in a blockbuster deal with the Columbus Blue Jackets. General Manager Bill Guerin traded a first, second, third, and fourth round picks, plus prospect Daemon Hunt, to obtain the 6-foot-4 Jiricek. The response was a mixed bag, with everyone acknowledging his offensive talent, but some tempering their enthusiasm for his potential, mostly due to his poor skating. Due to injuries on the blue line, Jiricek was pressed into action for six games in January. In those six games, he recorded one goal and two assists, but they sent him back to Iowa immediately after his best game in Colorado. We never saw him again in Minnesota. Jiříček lacerated his spleen playing in Iowa in March and missed the rest of the season. You’d think having this highlight as the last memory of you to the fan base would have culminated in palpable buzz heading into this season. For a player the Wild traded so much for, it’s odd how much concern there is about whether he will be a full-time NHLer this year. The offense is obvious, but his skating could be a problem for him to defend consistently at the NHL level. Plus, the emergence of offensive dynamo Zeev Buium on the blue line could make it difficult for Jiricek to play up in the lineup. To all of that, I say, who cares? Ultimately, Bill Guerin and the Wild married themselves to Jiříček for at least the short term. You can’t give up the amount of capital they did and not play the young defender. What that looks like is anyone’s guess. Jiříček is Minnesota's biggest wild card heading into the season because he's so volatile. Let’s first dive into what an excellent season for Jiříček looks like. At his best, the former 6th overall pick creates offense at an elite level and can provide juice on the power play. It's not just his shot. Jiricek has a unique knack for stepping into voids on the power play when needed, something many defenders struggle with. He’s also no slouch defensively when he is playing smartly to his strengths. Jiříček has acknowledged that he needs to improve at his transitional skating so he can establish better gaps through the neutral zone through his own end. But when the 6-foot-4 defenseman can get himself into position to close gaps with his long reach, he’s an underrated defender. Jiříček can step up to oncoming forwards and squeeze them into less desirable spots on the ice. Once there, his size and strength cause issues. He can disrupt plays and get possession of loose pucks. At his worst, Jiricek can be a liability among the blue line group, although I argue it’s not as devastating as others make it out to be. If he can’t create offense, it will undoubtedly magnify those mistakes. When Kirill Kaprizov turns the puck over at the offensive blue line, we all give him a pass because what he brings to the team far outweighs his mistakes. Jiříček cannot afford such leeway if he does not provide offense immediately this season. There lies the flip side of what a great season looks like. If Jiříček can’t provide offense immediately, his spot in the lineup will be in jeopardy. It will be another season of the Wild brass not really knowing what they have in him. It’s why the Wild need to truly embrace the wild card that is Jiricek this season. If their goal is for him to be a well-rounded defenseman this year, then many folks at the Xce-- er, I mean, Grand Casino Center -- will be left disappointed. They can’t look at the assets they traded away and desire him to be a 20-minute-per-night type of player at both ends. Will that come with time? Maybe. But it’s also completely fine for Jiříček to be a special teams ace and provide 10 to 15 goals per season from the blue line. There is still considerable value in that. But they won’t know unless they embrace the current negatives in Jiříček’s game. They have to give him the runway to establish his niche on this team. He doesn’t have to be a top-4 defenseman for the Wild to succeed this year. However, it will be a failure if they don’t at least determine if Jiříček has a future in Minnesota. And from what I’ve seen, it won’t be a failure. Jiříček has a chance to reshape what the Wild’s blue line looks like through their competing window. And I’m betting on that wild card panning out.

The Marco Rossi contract saga of the year 2025 is finally over. The Minnesota Wild have reportedly signed the young centerman to a new contract that will keep him in St. Paul for at least a few more years, potentially. According to PuckPedia, the Wild have re-signed Rossi to a three-year deal that have a salary come in around the $5 million mark. Shortly after this report from PuckPedia, The Athletic's Michael Russo doubled down on his initial report from Thursday that the Wild are very close to putting pen to paper and then reported officially that it will be a three-year, $15-million contract for Rossi, meaning that it is a flat $5 million cap hit for the young centerman through the 2027-28 season. This all comes after months of reports and rumors about a stalemate. Earlier this offseason, it appeared that a trade was most likely to happen. The Wild were not satisfied with Rossi's initial contract demands and thought that instead of nailing him down to a contract similar to this one, they would try to see what his value is like in the trade market. But due to those financial demands and some more traditional general managers questioning his size and whether or not his production was simply because of playing with Kirill Kaprizov, there were no offers good enough for Wild general manager Bill Guerin to accept. Now, Rossi and the Wild have come together to find a somewhat temporary solution. The contract is only three years, which means a whole lot of things. First, Rossi will remain a restricted free agent at the end of this deal, with him just being one year away from unrestricted free agency in the summer of 2029. He will be eligible for arbitration this time around, so there could be a swifter solution if, for some reason, there is still this same player-team dynamic three years from now. With the contract being three years, it is also an opportunity for Rossi to firmly establish himself as that true, top-six center that everyone ultimately hopes he becomes. If his contract demands were truly Matt Boldy's deal of seven years at a $7-million AAV, shaving off $2 million per year to potentially cash in by even more three years from now is not a bad deal for the player. That is, if he becomes a consistent 60–70-point centerman who plays in all situations. The dollars and term feel like the right balance of risk and potential reward for both the Wild and Rossi. On a pure salary basis, it could be a steal for Minnesota, but it is such a short deal that it won't truly feel like a bargain. To put it this way: Rossi is making just $250,000 less per season than Joel Eriksson Ek has been through some dominant two-way seasons. We're just happy this is now over, and we can stop thinking about contract negotiations and put our focus on what can potentially happen on the ice.

The universal view of the Zach Parise and Ryan Suter buyouts is that they were an anchor around the neck of the Minnesota Wild. That's absolutely true, you can't argue that Minnesota's upside wasn't capped by having $15 million or so in dead money these last two years. But even downsides can have upsides, and for Bill Guerin, the upside of having no money to play with is that it's pretty hard to make mistakes. Sure, you don't get to have those splashy summer headlines from signing free agents, but those tend to curdle quickly. Look at the Seattle Kraken, who threw center Chandler Stephenson $44 million last summer out of desperation for depth down the middle. Or pop some popcorn and get ready for Year 2 of the Nashville Predators weighing down their team with big deals for aging Steven Stamkos, Jonathan Marchessault, and Brady Skjei. By default, Guerin avoided those landmines. That's not to discredit what he accomplished during the worst of the Wild buyouts. He had little margin for error in those four seasons, and he piloted his team to the playoffs in three out of four years. Regardless of whether or not you think that's what the play should have been, it's very impressive work. Now the field has opened to Guerin, with all of the privileges and risks that will entail. And as efficient as Guerin has been over these last four years, it's hard not to be a bit nervous about this. We saw him step on one of those landmines by giving Yakov Trenin a four-year, $3.5 million AAV contract last summer, even with the team cap-strapped. There's also the fact that the Vancouver Canucks apparently saved Guerin from giving Brock Boeser a risky, lucrative, long-term deal. That's a concern for a team that's already starting to see a few cracks in its spending. The Wild moved up from 19th to 11th in the NHL in contract efficiency, per Dom Luszczyszyn's annual ranking at The Athletic. It's encouraging, but it doesn't tell the whole story. A significant amount of heavy lifting was accomplished by $15 million of dead cap being reduced to less than $2 million, as well as Matt Boldy's value skyrocketing when weighed against his $7 million price tag. Last season, the Wild had just seven contracts that Luszczyszyn projected to produce negative value. Now that number is up to nine, and the average length of those contracts extends through the next three years (two years, if you exclude Brock Faber's eight-year extension that kicked in last month). That includes every defenseman except for Jake Middleton. The list of likely-negative-value deals also includes two of Guerin's extensions from Fall 2023 (Ryan Hartman and Marcus Foligno), last summer's "splash" signing (Trenin), and this summer's free agent of note (Nico Sturm). No team is immune to bad contracts, and the good teams rely on having some good or even great deals to cancel out the bad. The Wild are in the positive, overall. However, that's assuming Kirill Kaprizov is making $9 million against the cap. Next fall, that will become a deal much closer to his value. Heck, he might even be the highest-paid player in the league. There goes a $5 million cushion to absorb a bad hit or two. The salary cap's rise also means that the Wild are receiving their cap relief at a time when player prices are set to skyrocket. That might help the longer-term negative-value contracts, such as Faber (for now), Brodin, Foligno, and Trenin, age a bit more gracefully. Still, it presents a new set of problems. We're already seeing the conflict between the Wild's price points and the market in their stalemate with Marco Rossi. Getting $13 million of flexibility would have gone a long way if the cap had still been flat, as it has been for the last four years. Instead, the Wild are giving about half of that to Kaprizov in a year, and $8 million isn't going to go terribly far going forward. Heck, they might spend a bunch of it on Rossi. And if not Rossi, there's the next free agent opportunity, especially since the Wild are hoping to eventually deliver on "Christmas Morning." How can Guerin stay smart, flexible, and efficient going forward? A big part of that puzzle is in place, at least for the next couple of seasons. Entry Level Contracts for Zeev Buium and Danila Yurov mean that the Wild will have key contributors making very little money for the next two years. David Jiříček is in the final year of his ELC next year, and doesn't figure to make a ton of money on his next deal, unless things go really well. But that's only part of the formula, and that's only temporary. Guerin is going to have to navigate the seas of free agency while having a full arsenal of cap space without taking on too much water from bad deals. Making the best of a limited situation is a skill, but now we'll have to see how Guerin's cap management translates to a new environment.

Everyone loves the classic combos: peanut butter and jelly, ketchup and mustard, Mats Zuccarrello and Kirill Kaprizov. What about Ryder Ritchie and <insert star forward’s name here>? The potential to become the perfect complement to a star forward in the NHL is what makes Ritchie, a second-round selection from 2024, the Minnesota Wild’s seventh-best prospect according to the recent Hockey Wilderness writers poll. I had Ritchie fifth on my ballot because his offensive instincts and ability to make plays that create space with quick touches and intelligent reads are high-level for a forward who just turned 19 earlier this month. The Calgary native played a key role in the WHL this season on a dominant Medicine Hat Tigers team. He bounced between the top two lines and finished third on the team in scoring, with 29 goals and 32 assists in 53 regular-season games. The right wing also produced 9 goals and 9 assists in 18 playoff games during Medicine Hat’s run to a WHL playoff championship. He then had a stellar 4 goal, 1 assist performance in the CHL’s Memorial Cup, where Medicine Hat lost in the final. Ritchie was often used as a sparkplug in the top six, switching lines to help jump-start the offense. In multiple games that I watched, he played primarily on the second line, but Medicine Hat also gave him significant ice time on the top line with Gavin McKenna. By the time the Memorial Cup rolled around, Ritchie was a fixture on the top line. He seems like the type of player that will mesh well with intelligent, offensively minded teammates because they’ll have the instincts to go to small-area spaces where Ritchie tends to look for with his puck touches, especially when down low. Ritchie has excellent instincts without the puck, which he uses to read the play and get to the right spot at the right time. He’s a smooth, controlled skater and manages his pace well when forechecking as part of a cycle, which means that he can observe the play and move with it to find and establish space. As a result, when Ritchie gets the puck, he often has an idea of what he wants to do with it. He makes a lot of quick, high-awareness plays with the puck, especially in tight, and understands when to hold onto it until a teammate can get into space. Ritchie has quick, soft hands and handles the puck with intention, meaning he wants to make a play the instant it becomes available. All of the clips above are from the same game, and it didn’t take long to find enough of them to make a highlight package. I was confident that that would be the case, because every time I’ve watched Ritchie play, on video and in person, he does the same thing. Sometimes, when he makes short passes to open space, he puts it in guys’ feet or handcuffs them a bit. Still, I think this will be less of an issue in professional hockey, with more talented teammates who are ready to receive passes and able to handle them from multiple angles. Ritchie also has a strong shot, quick release, and good scoring touch. He probably won’t be a big point producer in the NHL, but he’s diverse enough offensively to become a valuable offensive contributor. I expect he’ll be able to beat NHL goalies from mid-range, especially if he can establish a reputation as a playmaking threat. One big question with Ritchie is whether he has enough speed to be a top-six winger. As a skater, he’s smooth but not powerful, and maneuvers well but isn’t quick or explosive. Ritchie relies on his size a lot at the junior level, but I wonder if he’ll be able to do that to the same degree in pro hockey if he isn’t able to win enough puck races. Defensively, Ritchie can be guilty of puck watching and floating out of position at times in his own zone, which leads to him scrambling to get to his spot and putting teammates in a bad position. It’s not for lack of caring, though; he has a defensive conscience and doesn’t often cheat for offense. Ritchie must learn to apply his strong awareness more on the defensive side of the puck as well. However, smart players tend to figure that out over time, and Ritchie is a smart player. That said, he’s probably not going to be a penalty killer in pro hockey. He didn’t even kill penalties in juniors, where top players often get shorthanded minutes. It’s conceivable that Ritchie can become a competent puck-mover and playmaker in an NHL top-six, a player who can process the game quickly enough to develop chemistry with top offensive players. He could become a 25-goal, 60-point guy if he continues to evolve offensively and develops a bit more power in his straight-line and lateral movements. Regardless, I think that becoming a consistent 50-point scorer is a reasonable expectation, even if Ritchie ultimately slots in as more of a middle-six player. He elected to make the move to college hockey this season and will head east to Boston University, where he is expected to be one of the team’s top forwards. Look for Ritchie to play on a scoring line centered by Chicago Blackhawks prospect Sacha Boisvert, who transferred to BU after leading North Dakota in scoring as a freshman. Ritchie is also on the list of players being considered for Canada’s World Junior Championship roster this winter. Still, he’s probably a long shot to make a team that could have as many as 30 first-round picks to choose from. The Wild will most likely prefer him to spend two seasons in the NCAA before they sign him, which would result in him joining the organization for the 2027-28 season. Until then, it should be fun to watch him grow his game. Perhaps by the time he arrives, we’ll be looking at a player with the potential to mix perfectly with one of the Wild’s star forwards, and fans will get to enjoy a combo that’s as natural as peas and carrots.