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It’s no secret that the Minnesota Wild have struggled to find depth scoring this season, particularly from the fourth line. A quick glance at the organizational depth chart suggests that might not change anytime soon. Minnesota’s fourth line this season has primarily featured: Jakub Lauko (8 career goals in 121 NHL games played) Devin Shore (2 goals in his last 97 NHL games) Marat Khusnutdinov (2 career goals in 63 NHL games played) And Ben Jones (no goals in 26 NHL games played this season) While no team expects their fourth line to fill the back on the net regularly, they hope it can at least control possession so that the top lines can hop on the ice with the puck in the offensive zone as often as possible. However, that’s where the Wild’s fourth-line players have fallen short this season. Take a look at these possession metrics from MoneyPuck: While fourth-line players typically perform below the NHL average, the numbers above demonstrate less-than-ideal output. For context, all Winnipeg Jets forwards who have played significant minutes are above 48% in Corsi and expected goals percentage. In an ideal world, the Wild’s fourth line could produce somewhere in the same vicinity and give the top lines more opportunities to start shifts in the offensive zone each night. On Tuesday, The Athletic reported that Kirill Kaprizov will be out for at least four weeks to undergo surgery for his nagging lower-body injury. Therefore, the Wild’s depth will be tested once again, and it might be time for the Wild to provide other players with opportunities to make positive contributions to the fourth line. They should start with Caedan Bankier. I’ve watched Bankier closely since the Wild took him 86th in the 2021 draft. Most recently, I saw him when I attended the Iowa Wild’s home series against the Rockford Ice Hogs on January 17 and 18. The more I’ve watched Bankier play, the more I’ve become convinced that he’s the Wild’s future third-line center and that he has promise. He’s not ready to fill that role now, but the 6-foot-2, 192-pound center is trending in the right direction. Bankier has earned an opportunity to get a few games with the big squad. It’s been a tough season in Des Moines, where the team has suffered from the fifth-worst save percentage in the AHL. Iowa’s struggles are reflected in the skaters’ counting stats, and Bankier is no exception. He’s posted eight goals and nine assists in 40 games. While that’s unimpressive at first glance, it only tells part of the tale. As he’s developed over the past season and a half in Iowa, Bankier has slowly learned to use his size to influence possession. He has soft hands and makes crisp, accurate passes. These attributes, along with his superior hockey sense and responsible, two-way tendencies, have helped him grow into a player with a mature game that knows how to compete against professional players. He also can win faceoffs from the right side (you’ll have to take my word for it, as the AHL does not publish individual faceoff statistics). Considering that Khusnutdinov has only won 46.1% of draws thus far and has been unable to drive possession, Bankier could represent a clear upgrade, even if only for a few games. At the very least, he looks like a viable call-up option who can provide a different look. Bankier’s pro-level details and quality decision-making make him a reliable player. Consider the below clip from Iowa’s game against Rockford on January 18. None of that stuff is flashy. However, when players do it consistently, it drives winning. When Bankier came off the ice, the Iowa Wild had possession in the offensive zone, and Rockford hadn’t even come close to sniffing an offensive chance. It wasn’t a one-off, either. Bankier has moments like these regularly. Below is an example of him using his size and awareness to maintain possession in the offensive zone from a preseason game against Winnipeg: And lastly, watch him shrug off an attacker as he carries the puck up the wall in the neutral zone: None of this is to say that Bankier is close to a finished product, and there are warts to his game he must correct. He must learn to dictate moments and control pace with the puck on his stick, and he might benefit from a summer training with Andy Ness to add a bit of quickness to his lateral movements. Still, his game is coming along, and Wild fans should be excited. Caedan Bankier has earned the opportunity to play some NHL games, if only so he can be better prepared for when his time arrives. Undoubtedly, he can eventually become a quality third-line center in the NHL. When Wild fans get their first glimpse of him with the big squad, they’ll be able to see why.

What do newly-signed Yakov Trenin and newly extended Jake Middleton have in common with Marcus Foligno, Freddy Gaudreau, and Ryan Hartman? They're all perfectly fine NHL players who are perfectly able to succeed when in the correct role. What else do they have in common? The correct role for each of them (at least, on an elite team) is either in the bottom-six forwards or on the third defensive pair. The Minnesota Wild have also signed them through the 2026-27 season. All but Hartman are now under contract through the summer of 2028. These five role players are on the books for $16.05 million this upcoming season, a rate that rises to $17.95 million in the two following years. The $16.05 million represents about 18.2% of the current $88 million salary cap, and the $17.95 million comes out to be about 19.5% of the projected $92 million cap for 2025-26. When you allocate 18-19% of the salary cap to 21.7% of the roster, that doesn't sound too bad! Collectively, these players make less than their fair share of the roster. Unfortunately, that's not how NHL economics work. Look at the NHL's most successful teams and what they allocate for their depth players. It quickly becomes clear that the Wild are zagging while the smartest teams zig. The top teams set out to min-max their rosters, prioritizing star power, even at the expense of squeezing out the league's middle class. I'm not writing this out of disdain for role players. Instead, the fact that these "middle-class" players are easier to replace with cheaper, younger depth. If you aren't a top-six forward or a top-four defenseman, it's difficult to justify paying you $4 million when a kid on an ELC can do your job 80-90% as effectively. A world where a loyal member of an organization is unceremoniously phased out for cost-cutting is not a nice world! It's not the world that this hockey blogger would choose! However, it is the reality that the Players Association and league have negotiated. And in it, we have to look at these salaries in terms of how efficiently they utilize the team's resources. Use the Cup Champion Florida Panthers as a model, for example. They poured almost every dollar not nailed down into the top of the roster. Sergei Bobrovsky, Sasha Barkov, Matthew Tkachuk, Aaron Ekblad, and Sam Reinhart combined to make 52.1% of their salary cap. Doing that forced them to get incredible bargains or fill their roster with cost-effective players. They knocked it out of the park on the bargain front. Sam Bennett, Carter Verhaeghe, Brandon Montour, Evan Rodrigues, and Gustav Forsling added up to $17.76 million, less than the Wild will pay their "Five Guys" next year. Oliver Ekman-Larsson ($2.25M) and Niko Mikkola ($2.5M) were the only other players making between $2 and $5 million. Florida's fivesome added up to 16.9 Standings Points Above Replacement last season. Compare that to 2.5 from Minnesota's "Five Guys" last year. As much as the Wild talk about down seasons from the likes of Hartman, Gaudreau, and Foligno, this fivesome was only worth 4.1 SPAR in 2022-23. The Edmonton Oilers also min/maxed their roster, with their top seven players soaking up 56.5% of the cap. They didn't get the amount of home runs that Florida got from their middle-class players, aside from Evan Bouchard ($3.9M). Still, their middle-class bloat was minimal. Their middle class includes Bouchard and starting goalie Stuart Skinner ($2.6M), then Cody Ceci ($3.25M), Warren Foegele ($2.75), and Brett Kulak ($2.75). Not great, but at least they're few and cheap. Go down the line. The Dallas Stars had seven players in their middle-class bracket (adding up to $20.5 million). However, those players included Jake Oettinger, Joe Pavelski, Matt Duchene, and Mason Marchment. You'll take a starting goalie and 74 goals for that price any day, thank you very much. The New York Rangers round out the Conference Finalists. Who was in their middle class? Five players. Top-pairing defenseman K'Andre Miller ($3.872M), 28-goal, 57-point Alexis Lafrenière ($2.235M), Barclay Goodrow ($3.642M), Ryan Lindgren ($3M), and Kaapo Kakko ($2.1M). That's just under $15 million for their middle class, with two impact players in there, and even that was too expensive for New York. The Rangers dumped Goodrow to waivers to clear precious cap room. Sorry to the role players. While the "Five Guys" are the most egregious examples of middle-class bloat, they're far from the limit of its scope. Mats Zuccarello put up 63 points last season, granted, but is turning 37 before the season starts and will make $4.125 in two years. Minnesota didn't (couldn't?) trade Filip Gustavsson, who was a sub-.900 goalie last year and is making $3.75 million next season. Marc-Andre Fleury turns 40 in November and makes $2.5 million against the cap. Marcus Johansson scored just 11 goals and 30 points last year and comes at a $2 million cap hit next season. Add all that up, and that's nine middle-class guys coming in at $28.245 million. Fleury and Johansson come off the books after next season. Still, that's about 26% of the cap devoted to seven players who generally aren't moving the needle. That's not how the top teams do things. They pay the players they can't replace and replace the ones they can when they get too expensive. Minnesota did this once upon a time, developing the likes of Brandon Duhaime and Connor Dewar while bringing in cheaper, younger versions of Hartman, Gaudreau, and Middleton. The cap is going up, and the Wild are about to get nearly $15 million of dead cap coming off the books. They also have talented prospects on ELCs. Therefore, they can afford luxuries; that's indisputable. But if you gave Florida or New York that flexibility to get luxuries they would (and did) spend it on bringing in stars like Tkachuk long-term. If you gave Dallas the ability to afford luxuries, they would (and did) spend it to bring in high-upside plays like Duchene and Marchment on the cheap. What did the Wild splurge on with their future windfall? A handful of role players who will spend most of their deals playing on the third-and-fourth lines and pairings. Guerin must believe that these players, with their grit, jam, etc., are the key to bringing Minnesota where they want to go. He has to be right, or the Wild will find themselves with expensive anchors while the smart teams keep sailing past them.

The Minnesota Wild are building the foundations of a solid future. Experts believe Minnesota’s front office drafts well, and several prospects appear ready to make an impact in the NHL. Marat Khusnutdinov, Liam Ohgren, and Jesper Wallstedt have all played games for the Wild this year. Meanwhile, Danila Yurov seems to be on the way soon. The team's farm system is so good that Scott Wheeler recently ranked them second in the NHL in his yearly prospect rankings. Wheeler had them at 11th in the same rankings last year. The heavy lifting of the improved ranking is the new crown jewel of the Wild's prospect pool. Zeev Buium. When the Wild drafted Buium 12th overall in last year's draft, people immediately considered him a steal. We ranked Buium as the Wild's third-best prospect entering the season behind Yurov and Wallstedt, and the pick has only aged better since. Buium is a great defender with a winning pedigree. He had just finished a historic season at Denver University, becoming the first teenager to score 50 points in a season in over 20 years. Buium has built on his breakout year. In his second year at Denver, he turned himself into more than just a good prospect that the Wild got as a draft steal. Instead, the Californian is now a genuine top-defensive prospect in the league. After a draft year as productive as Buium's, imagining how he could improve was difficult. How do you improve historic scoring totals capped off by a national championship and World Juniors Gold Medal? Buium has answered by refining his impressive arsenal of skills. Last year, Buium showed the ability to be a positive player in every phase of the game. He wasn't bad defensively, but his offensive prowess stood out. Buium has been more committed to improving his defensive play and dominating possessions this season. "The harder I play in my own end and take pride in it," Buium told the Star Tribune, "the more likely I'm not going to be playing defense as much." It's an approach that has already resulted in better all-around play and even improved his offense. Buium isn't letting the game come to him. Instead, he's involving himself in every level of play. A player who can make a strong defensive play in his own end, execute a breakout pass, join the rush, and set up in the offensive zone all at the same time? That's a dangerous skill. Denver and Team USA coach David Carle also spoke about this ability. "He knows he needs to crank it up a little bit," Carle said. "So, that's what I think is really impressive about him is he has an ability to interpret what the game needs from him, and he can adapt and give it what it needs." His hockey IQ and high-end skills make him an elite offensive organizer. When Buium is on the ice, Denver's play on both ends flows through him. He's a smooth-skating puck-mover and a breakout quarterback. His mix of instincts, speed, and commitment to defense allow him to overcome his average stature in making plays in his end. When you compare Buium to some of the league's top defenders, he fits the mold of a modern elite NHL defender. He plays college hockey and doesn't have elite size, but he isn't small, either. He can play an extremely well-rounded game, even if explosive offense is his primary weapon. Players like Cale Makar, Quinn Hughes, Adam Fox, and Charlie McAvoy are similar and among the league's most elite blueliners. While Buium's play has been encouraging, it is impossible to look past the eye-popping stat sheet. Early in the season, Buium was producing but not quite at the level he had in his previous year. With no goals and 10 points in his first 10 games, the blueliner had impressive production but not the elite scoring we saw in his 50-point freshman campaign. Part of that decreased production was due to Buium's evolving role at Denver, which includes more responsibility. The team relies on him more defensively and as a play-driver than last season. Buium focused more on the process than the results. His stats indicate that his investment in improving his overall game is paying meaningful dividends. Buium's stat sheet production is catching up with his play. Now, he's scoring at a similar pace to last season while still playing a more well-rounded game. He has 32 points in 26 games, including 13 in his previous 10. That's a rate of 1.23 points per game, better than the 1.19 points he registered as a freshman. His 32 points are the most among college defenders. If Denver makes a deep run, he could have another 50-point season. Since 2009-10, only two defenders, Buium and Brendan Smith, have reached that 50-point mark in college hockey. Now, Buium has an opportunity to do it twice. Buium has myriad elite skills he’s constantly improving. He is also a historic producer. Those two attributes would already be enough to make him a top prospect. However, he also has a track record of being a consummate winner. Even at 19, Buium has already experienced more winning than many great hockey players do in their careers. In his freshman season, he won the national championship with Denver and played a key role in winning a gold medal for the USA at the 2024 World Juniors. He followed up that gold medal this year with another in the 2025 World Juniors, the first time the USA won back-to-back golds at the premiere event for junior-aged players. Buium again played a vital role, providing a beautiful assist on the overtime game-winning goal. The entire team wanted that game badly, but Buium had a burning desire to win hockey games. After the assist, the defender hesitated to join the celebratory scrum, focusing more on winning the game than celebrating. "I just wanted to win that game so bad," Buium recalled. "I wasn't even thinking about a celebration. I just didn't want to lose." Buium's ultra-competitive spirit has been evident at every level of hockey. That intangible quality completes his profile as one of the top prospects in the NHL. The Minnesota Wild are getting an elite talent. Buium affects the game just as much off the scoresheet as he does off it. He’s a defender who profiles as a top-pairing, play-driving defender. Most of all, Minnesota will be welcoming a winner. Time will tell if Buium can carry all of that to the NHL. For now, he's one of the best prospects in the league and is only improving.

By now, all Minnesota Wild fans are aware of the shiny new toy in the State of Hockey: defenseman David Jiricek. The Wild paid a hefty price to acquire the No. 6 overall pick from 2022 (and a fifth-round pick), sending Daemon Hunt and a first, second, third, and fourth-rounder to the Columbus Blue Jackets. For that kind of price, it makes sense that fans would expect something special from Jiricek. Will Minnesota get that kind of player? We could discuss his limited NHL track record, his shining performance in the 2023 World Junior Championships, or his extensive pro experience in Czechia and the AHL. But that does not quite convey the experience of watching him play regularly. Fortunately, Jiricek has been on the radar long before 2022. He debuted in the Czechia Extraliga -- the country's highest pro level -- on January 26, 2020, barely two months after turning 16. Jiricek has had scouts' attention for a while, but how have their opinions developed alongside Jiricek through the years? Let's track it in four phases, starting with... 2021: On the Rise We first see Jiricek's name cropping up, at least on public scouting reports, in the back half of 2021. Early prognosticators of the 2022 Draft seemed to have Jircek as a consensus top-15 pick. NHLEntryDraft.com even had him going to the Columbus Blue Jackets in their early mock draft. Great job! Their report? The Czech rearguard is a two-way presence that skates very well for his size, showing a promising ability to break up plays, control the rush, or turn the puck up the other way. At the end of September 2021, Bob McKenzie of TSN released his 2022 draft list, and Jiricek debuted at No. 10. Jiricek is viewed as a throwback, hard-rock shutdown defensive defenceman, an ultra-aggressive big hitter with a mean streak who is a strong skater. Scouts love all that bite but are still debating his offensive ceiling/limitations. Though released much later to the public, Elite Prospects had been monitoring him in April 2021. David St-Louis wrote of him during the Under-18 Worlds: He kills rushes with backward skating and has some lateral mobility. He is physical. Very. Finishes every check.... He's an interesting player for sure. Just six months later, Jiricek made a much bigger impression on St-Louis. From October 2021 in Extraliga: Jiříček is going high in the draft. His tools clearly project as above-average (he’s a 6-foot-3, mobile, righty), and he cares about the defensive game... he can match shifty attackers with his four-way mobility. He is also physical, able to pin even pro attackers already. Impressive. So, at this time, Jiricek is seen as a big, mobile defender with upside as a shutdown defender. Then the offense starts coming. He scored five goals and 11 points in 29 games at Extraliga. Those don't sound like huge numbers. Still, no one has ever come close, before or since, to that kind of production for a draft-eligible defenseman in the Czech league. A big part of that came from him pushing the tempo as often as humanly possible. Wrote Elite Prospects' Mitchell Brown in an October 2021 scouting report: "I like how he doesn’t just make the simple play once he gets the puck. He beats defenders, looks for teammates cross-ice, and uses space before shooting." EP colleague J.D. Burke agreed at the time, saying, "[He] doesn’t connect on a lot of his plays -- the stretch passes, the activations off of the blue line and the deceptive feeds into the slot, and the pacey efforts to move the puck – but he’s trying them, and that counts for a lot." While noting that Jiricek "could be a pain in the ass on NHL ice" someday, Josh Tessler of SmahtScouting gave a lot of love to the rugged defenseman's surprisingly crafty hands. "Jiříček has excellent timing at cradling the puck and uses his elusive stick-handling ability to maintain possession of the puck for his team to keep the offensive momentum alive." Jiricek's star would only rise from there. 2022: Draft Day For almost every NHL player, draft day is the high-water mark of your potential. No one's seen you play North American pro hockey. You can be anything -- an All-Star or a Hall of Famer. Heck, you can even be an all-time great soccer player. The hype train runs wild, the superlatives fly, and we all lose our minds a bit. And at this point, Jiricek's potential is through the roof. After the Blue Jackets drafted him, his agent pegged him as Shea Weber, and his Czech teammate, former NHL defenseman Jakub Kindl, compared him to Aaron Ekblad, the former No. 1 overall pick and Calder Trophy winner. Scouts weren't rushing to disagree, either. Even the normally conservative Corey Pronman believed he was most similar to three-time All-Star Alex Pietrangelo (No. 4 overall in 2008) as a prospect. There were only two opinions about Jiricek leading up to the draft: You loved him, or you looooooved him. No major outlets had him outside the top-10 of his class, and few had him out of the top-five. Here's the accompanying scouting report from Scott Wheeler, who merely loved Jiricek, ranking him sixth in his final 2022 Draft ranking: [He has] one of — if not the — hardest point shots in the draft. It’s a bomb, and he does a really good job keeping it on target and a few feet off the ice... he’s a confident, active, engaged three-zone player who has all of the tools you look for in a top defender. As he continues to smooth out and polish his game, it’s hard to imagine he doesn’t become, at the very least, a top-four guy. And that's from a comparatively tepid perspective. Sam McGilligan (from scouting publication McKeen's Hockey, whom a young Judd Brackett wrote for) was over the moon for him. For me, Jiricek stands out as such a unique player that you can't find anywhere in the draft. If I go back another year, I still can't find someone like him. He's a bit of a unicorn. The obvious draw to Jiricek's game becomes crystal clear after just a few minutes of watching him -- his unprecedented aggression.... Calculated aggression means constantly applying pressure to the opponent, forcing fast decisions to avoid being smashed by the Czech freight train. And if that seems like a lot, Elite Prospects might have been even higher. The outlet ranked him second overall in his draft class and in the top five of several skills, including: Best Defensive Defenseman (first) Best Neutral Zone Defender (first) Highest Floor (second) Best Offensive Defenseman (third) Hardest Hitter (third) Best Transition Defenseman (fourth) Highest Ceiling (fifth) EP's player comparable was Moritz Seider, who also won the Calder Trophy. Their ultimate conclusion? There’s a durable defensive foundation in place that will carry him to a top-four role at a bare minimum, even if his play with the puck doesn’t come along for the ride... You’re looking at a 6-foot-3, right-shot defenceman who can do just about everything at a low-end top-pairing level through the height of his career. But unlike most players, Jiricek's high-water mark as a prospect wasn't the draft. 2023: Top Of the Worlds Jiricek could go directly to the AHL for his first season after being drafted, a luxury not afforded to many players in the first year after their draft. But already a seasoned pro at age-18, Jiricek could seamlessly handle the transition to North American hockey. He set the record for most AHL points for a defenseman in their Draft+1 season, piling up 38 in 55 games. It was an impressive campaign, topped off by a dominant Under-20 World Junior tournament. The goal above helped Team Czechia to the Gold Medal Game against Canada (where they lost in OT), earning their first medal at the U-20 tournament since 2005. Jiricek was especially dominant, scoring three goals (on 30 shots, ranking sixth-most among all players) and seven points in his seven games. Jiricek had a plus/minus of +10, getting tagged with just one minus on the tournament. He was the obvious pick for Best Defenseman of the 2023 World Juniors. Jiricek faced players already having massive success in the NHL: Connor Bedard, Logan Cooley, Dylan Guenther, Logan Stankoven, Luke Hughes, and more. He not only acquitted himself, but the data shows that Jiricek was an absolute beast in all three zones. Wrote EP's Lassi Alanen after the tournament: He was a commanding factor both offensively and defensively. He had the highest shot volume in the entire tournament, forwards included, and also set up scoring chances at an above-average rate. Defensively, he killed plays both in in-zone setting and while defending against the rush. At The Athletic, Wheeler ranked him as the ninth-best prospect that summer, with Pronman tagging him as the 20th-best Under-23 player/prospect in the NHL. Pronman had him eighth among defensemen behind Rasmus Dahlin, Seider, Owen Power, Noah Dobson, Jake Sanderson, Hughes, and Bowen Byram. "Jiricek has been one of the most impactful teenage defensemen I’ve seen in the AHL in recent years," declared Pronman. "He’s showing a whole other level of offense this season.... Everything, except for his footspeed, points to a big minutes NHL defenseman. EP was still massively high on him, ranking him as their seventh-best NHL prospect, and top defenseman. "When he steps on the ice, the game belongs to him," their profile read. Hard to beat that. There was just one group that wasn't so all-in on Jiricek... 2024: The Struggle (Colum)Bus Jiricek's path to Minnesota started in 2024, though no one knew it then. The top young defenseman made his displeasure known after Columbus sent him down to the AHL in January. “I played good hockey in the NHL," he said. "I’m an NHL player right now. That’s my opinion, that I should be in the NHL right now." Jarmo Kekäläinen (who Jiricek outlasted in Columbus, for what it's worth) might have seen it differently, but plenty of scouts took the player's side. Sportsnet's Jason Bukala went scorched-earth on Columbus' management: The Blue Jackets seem to forget what they have in this prospect. Jiricek can beat goalies at any level with a clapper or snap shot from range. He’s a power play threat waiting to happen. He has always produced offence along every stop in his development. St-Louis re-entered the picture to lend his support: "At the very least, Jiříček looks like an NHL player," he wrote. "His confidence knows no bounds. He plays the same creative and hyper-aggressive game in the NHL as he did in the AHL last season, in the Czech league before that, and in his junior days. That’s a massive positive for his development, as he’s constantly testing his limits and pushing them, becoming more and more skilled as he advances in levels." And that's perhaps where the core of the conflict lay between Jiricek and the Blue Jackets. Maximizing Jiricek means allowing him to play a high-risk style. But when he messes up, it's more dangerous than it might be for other players. St.-Louis explains why: Most daring defencemen usually have the skating ability to repair their mistakes.... Jiříček doesn’t have that kind of safety net, that recovery ability. Either [his daring plays] work spectacularly or they fail in the same fashion. And it’s the same defensively. The failure to launch, it turns out, brutally affected his stock with the Columbus organization. However, it didn't fully take the bloom off the rose outside of it. Pronman downgraded Jiricek on his U-23 rankings before the season from 20th to a still-strong 47th: The long-term projection on Jiricek remains promising given his toolkit. I like his defensive edge and thought he showed he could be a great two-way player at other levels. His feet aren't the best and he struggled adapting to the NHL pace.... With time I think he'll be an all-situations top-four defenseman. But, like with many players, the hype dies down eventually, and the NHL starts to reveal warts in one's game. After a vigorous defense of Jiricek in January, Bukala was a bit more muted in his assessment on November 18: As much as I appreciate what Jiricek can produce offensively he also needs to provide better-than-average defensive detail to find a regular role at the NHL level. St-Louis' scouting report from November 29 also puts his weaknesses into greater focus: A weakness even in his draft year, Jiříček’s skating hasn’t improved over the past few seasons. While he can speed up the ice to catch up to the play... his pivots lack fluidity. His decision-making with the puck and defensive awareness have been equally problematic. Of course, St-Louis points out that there's still a ton to like: Despite his ever-present weaknesses, Jiříček remains one of those rare right-shot defencemen capable of tilting the ice for his team. And, of course, in Minnesota, there's really one scout whose opinion matters most: Brackett. And the Wild's head scout is sold on him. "David Jiricek still has some things to work on, obviously," e told The Athletic's Michael Russo. "[But] he wants the puck.... He has an ability to get into spots where he can utilize it and support the rush. He plays definitive in his D zone." Brackett also provided immediate optimism by going on the record with his belief that his skating won't be the limiting factor as Columbus thought. "He is an average skater, but it’s good enough," he assured Russo. "You’re not going to look at him and go, ‘Oh, jeez!’ It’s good enough." Now that everyone has weighed in, and the Wild put their money where their mouths were, it's time to start seeing if Jiricek can live up to the faith so many have had in him throughout the years.

Danila Yurov typically overshadows Liam Öhgren in the Minnesota Wild prospect pecking order. It's been like that from the start, even though the Wild drafted Öhgren No. 19 overall at the 2022 Draft, and they didn't take Yurov off the board until the 24th pick. Even the Wild had Yurov ahead of Öhgren on their draft list, but they took Öhgren first as a gambit to land both prospects. Since then, we've been living in Yurov's world. The hype forming around him is well-deserved, of course. He finished the KHL season with 21 goals and 49 points, ranking in the league's top 20 in both categories. Yurov set the record for most points in a season for a KHL player in his Draft+2 season and has the most points per game of any 20-year-old KHLer since Kirill Kaprizov. Öhgren just doesn't have those raw numbers. While he put up one of the best seasons in Swedish Junior history in the year leading up to the 2022 Draft, those eye-popping numbers haven't translated to his country's highest levels of competition. Injuries limited him to 11 goals and 20 points in 36 games last season in Allsvenskan (the second-highest level in Sweden). However, he had a breakout playoff with eight goals and 13 points in 17 games. As for his first true season in the SHL, whose regular season ended on Tuesday, Öhgren looked solid but not great. Playing for the ever-solid Färjestad BK -- whose success stories include the Wild's own Jonas Brodin and Joel Eriksson Ek) -- Öhgren finished the season with 12 goals and 19 points in 26 games (the injury bug hit again). Strong, but not the record-setting performance Yurov just had in his country's top league. That's reflected in Hockey Prospecting's Player Comparison Tool, which gives Yurov a 45% chance of becoming a star at the NHL level and Öhgren's stardom odds at just 13%. That's not bad for Öhgren's part. But if you're into the whole Buyer's Remorse kind of thing, maybe you catch Jimmy Snuggerud (No. 23 overall; 21% Star Likelihood) playing for the Minnesota Gophers and wonder why the Wild would pass on a Chaska native for a guy whose point totals aren't as stellar. Letting him go to the St. Louis Blues, no less! Models like Hockey Prospecting, which uses NHL Equivalency (NHLe) to translate points from other leagues into an 82-game NHL total, come under fire for a few reasons. For one, points aren't everything -- just ask Brock Faber, who never scored anywhere... until he started putting up numbers in the NHL. It's also an inexact science to translate even AHL points to an NHL equivalent, much less a junior or European league. Still, these get used because points are the best, most available, and most strongly correlated to the NHL success metric we have publicly available. You can't find advanced stats for the AHL, KHL, Junior leagues, or pretty much anything that's not the NHL. They're tracked by companies that keep it on lockdown as proprietary data or dedicated independent analysts. Except, luckily enough for us, the Swedish Hockey League. The SHL has Corsi and Fenwick data dating back to the 2015-16 season. While we can't find out how Yurov drives play for Metallurg Magnitogorsk, for example, we can figure out the impact that Öhgren makes for Färjestad. It's a good thing we can do this, too. When we look deeper into Öhgren, we can see that he's a difference-maker in the SHL, and he might be more NHL-ready than we'd have thought otherwise. Öhgren is simply a possession monster and is so against men in Sweden. Of all the SHL players with 20 or more games, Öhgren's Fenwick For% (the percentage of unblocked shot attempts his team gets) is 60%, tied for fifth in the SHL. Whenever Öhgren's on the ice, his team gets three clean looks at the net for every two his opponents get. Connor McDavid and Brent Burns are examples of NHL players who are dictating play to that extent this year. Of course, there's a difference between the competition that Öhgren faces and that of McDavid and Burse, but we rarely see that kind of dominance from a junior-aged (under-20) player in the SHL. Using that 20-game cutoff, let's look at some of the top Fenwick For% seasons from the most notable forwards to come through Sweden since 2015-16. Carl Grundström (2016-17), now with the Los Angeles Kings, is the only junior-aged player in SHL history to control play more than Öhgren. Even so, Öhgren combines his possession dominance by nearly matching Grundström's stat line: 12 goals and 19 points for Öhgren and 14 goals and 20 points for Grundström. Oh, and Öhgren compiled these numbers in 19 fewer games. That brings us to another important point: Öhgren's scoring is pretty impressive, and not just in the context of him being a young player. Today, there aren't nearly the number of point-per-game players in the SHL as you'll find in other leagues, including the NHL. Sweden had just two players finish with over a point per game this year. So, scoring 0.73 points per game, as Öhgren did, makes him one of the league's top scorers. His scoring rate puts him at 21st in the SHL, which is about where Yurov ranks among KHL players. Notching 12 goals in 26 games gives him a goals-per-game rate of 0.46, which is good for second in the league, behind only 27-year-old David Tomasek. Those 0.46 goals per game not only are tops among junior-aged players this season, but it's one of the best goal-scoring seasons from a young prospect we've seen in the SHL this century. Elias Pettersson, Emil Bemström, and Patric Hörnqvist are the only Under-20 players who've scored as frequently in a season, per Quant Hockey. Öhgren's even-strength dominance doesn't just translate to gaudy but goalless possession numbers. It might be surprising that he ranked just 11th on Färjestad in power play time, with 1 minute and 23 seconds of ice time per game. He made hay while the sun shone, racking up two goals and two assists in his 36 minutes on the man advantage. Still, the bulk of his damage -- 10 goals and 15 points -- happened at even strength. So we know how many minutes he played at even-strength and how much he scored. That means we can calculate his goals, points, and shots per hour and compare them to other SHLers. Since even-strength scoring data exists in the SHL back to the 2010-11 season, we can expand our look at top drafted SHL prospects (minimum 20 games) back a few more years to see where Öhgren's even-strength individual numbers rank. Looking at this list, all you can say is Wöw. Sure, there's a sizable gap between the top two names (Elias Pettersson and William Nylander) and Öhgren, but placing third on this list in even-strength points per hour is still mighty impressive. Remember, Mika Zibanejad and William Karlsson are former 40-goal scorers, Kevin Fiala is a former 30-goal guy, and Eriksson Ek needs only one more goal to join the 30-goal club himself. Not to mention, his goal-scoring is No. 1 on this list, nudging past Petterson (who has three straight 30-goal seasons) and decidedly above Nylander (who scored 40 last year and is six goals from repeating the feat). The State of Hockey is on full Yurov Watch, and they should be. Yurov is an exciting, dynamic player. But while Öhgren's greatness as a prospect requires a bit more digging to become apparent, Minnesota shouldn't be sleeping on Öhgren, either. Being able to score at a high rate while also ranking as a top player in puck possession metrics is a special combination, and Öhgren's done both in one of the toughest leagues in the world. He should be every bit as much on the radar of players who could make the team out of camp as Yurov this fall. It could make for a legendary training camp competition.

The Minnesota Wild can't pretend that they have secondary scoring anymore. They might have been able to claim that when Joel Eriksson Ek was healthy. But over the 1-5-0 streak in their past six games, the evidence is in: They've scored nine goals in that stretch. Seven of them were either scored by Kirill Kaprizov, someone on Kaprizov's line, or the power play, which primarily features... you guessed it, Kaprizov. It's not particularly surprising. The Wild had secondary scoring issues last season, and they still have $15 million nuked off their salary cap from the final year of the Zach Parise/Ryan Suter buyouts. There weren't many scenarios in which Minnesota wouldn't be a team that lives and dies with its top line, power play, and superstar. Even so, this is pretty extreme. Here are the Wild's expected goals totals from the last three games when Kaprizov has been off the ice: December 12 vs Edmonton: 1.45 December 14 vs Philadelphia: 0.77 December 15 vs Vegas: 0.89 December 18 vs Florida: 0.49 December 20 vs Utah: 1.12 December 21 @ Winnipeg: 0.70 Sure, Kaprizov gets the bulk of the power play time, which gives him more offensive opportunities... but the rest of the team should be able to chip in more than 0.90 expected goals per game. It doesn't take a lot to figure out why, either. Without Eriksson Ek in the lineup, the second line is currently Matt Boldy and Marcus Johansson (whose play, generously, can be described as "volatile") and Freddy Gaudreau, who is having a nice bounce-back year but isn't a second-line forward. Now that Mats Zuccarello is back in the lineup, Boldy has had to carry the second line, and he hasn't responded to the role like you'd hope. Instead of elevating his teammates, he has one goal and an assist in his past five games. And folks... that's your second line. Ryan Hartman is your best third-liner, and he's nowhere near 100% healthy. It's hard to blame him for playing through what's ailing him, either, because the Wild are already icing an entire fourth line of AHL call-ups. Enough is enough. This isn't working, and the Wild have a potential solution in Des Moines in Liam Öhgren. The Wild thought enough of Öhgren to put him on the team out of camp. However, after eight games of playing fewer than 10 minutes per night, he got sent to the AHL. The reason why they sent him down is simple: He wasn't making an impact in a fourth-line role, and John Hynes couldn't find room for him in an elevated role. That's not the case anymore. According to Evolving-Hockey's Goals Above Replacement metric, Minnesota has only eight forwards (seven healthy) with a positive offensive impact this season. Hartman's been too hurt to be on the positive side of the ledger, and Johansson's offensive impact is worse than everyone but Marat Khusnutdinov. With all due respect to call-ups Devin Shore and Ben Jones, they're not quite cutting it, either. The Wild have a need for an influx of offense, and that's what Öhgren was supposed to be for them. Why wait? Especially given that Öhgren has responded to his demotion exactly the way teams want their prospects to do. His 10 goals in 16 games lead the team, and his 15 points are second. He's riding a high shooting percentage (22.2%) but also shooting nearly 3.0 times per game, showing he can create his own shot. At this point, how can anyone on the second line or below march into Hynes' office and feel aggrieved at Öhgren taking their spot? Kaprizov (7), Marco Rossi (5), Gaudreau, Boldy, and Yakov Trenin (2 each) are the only forwards with multiple goals in December. If any player is upset at losing playing time, the obvious solution would be to score. That sounds harsh, but the secondary scoring has been absent to the point where it demands a shake-up. There are no veterans walking in through that door. The Wild had zero cap space to begin with, and they're now into LTIR money, which makes them unable to accrue cap space. There is only one card for Guerin to play, and that's to bring in Öhgren to handle second-line and second power play duty. Even considering his slow start in the NHL, there are fewer excuses to pump the brakes with their prospect with every loss.

Unless you're a huge Yakov Trenin fan, the Minnesota Wild haven't made many headlines during this NHL offseason. Without making a hyped trade for someone like Patrik Laine or even Rutger McGroarty, the Wild had to settle with using their limited cap space to address issues at the margins. While the team added Trenin, Jakub Lauko, and an array of two-way options, including Devin Shore and Travis Boyd, they haven't had that many departures. The most expensive player to go out the door was Alex Goligoski, with a salary of just $2 million. It feels like there are only very minor departures, and in some ways, that's true. However, Mason Shaw's departure will leave one big hole in the locker room. The fourth-line winger hopped over the US-Canada border to sign with the Winnipeg Jets last week, giving their rivals to the North one hell of a spark plug. There's just no other way to say it: Mason Shaw kicked ass, and following the Wild is going to be a little less fun without him. That's maybe a weird thing to say about a player who played just 82 games in a Wild sweater, but Shaw poured as much of himself into the organization as players who were able to stick in St. Paul for years. Shaw's odds were always longer than everyone else's to make the NHL. As a five-foot-nine fourth-round pick in 2017, it's hard to be on anyone's radar, especially after having recovered from a torn ACL in junior. But Shaw did what he's always done: work hard. It didn't matter that he tore another ACL at a prospect tournament months after the Wild drafted him. He rehabbed, he returned, and the Iowa Wild signed him to an Amateur Tryout, where he impressed the staff in Des Moines. Shaw had one more torn knee before he could take his final form in Iowa, but once he grabbed a foothold, he refused to let go. During the 2020-21 season, coach Tim Army named him an alternate captain, and he scored eight goals and 22 points in 30 games. In 2021-22, he scored 19 goals and 52 points for Iowa, both ranking third on the team. The following year, he was named the Iowa Wild's captain. As a 23-year-old. That's nearly unheard of in the AHL, but Army said it wasn't even a question. "Mason was the right guy for it," he recalled in 2023. Or, he would have been had the Wild not decided he was the right guy for their fourth line. Shaw played just two games in Iowa before graduating to the Wild, where he didn't look back. In 59 games, Shaw scored seven goals and 17 points, playing on the penalty kill, engaging physically, and playing a max-effort game every night. Then came the heartbreaker of heartbreakers, his fourth ACL tear in March of 2023. Some players would've quit the game two ACLs ago, but did it stop Shaw? Hell no, it didn't. Maybe it's a Been There, Done That mentality. Still, you're never going to see a player on crutches giving his team the energy and spark Shaw did doing a Let's Play Hockey chant before Game 3 of Minnesota's playoff series against Dallas. You know this guy wants to play hockey with every fiber of his being because he's put himself through four grueling rehabs and could easily fall back on a career as a ring announcer. This moment sends chills up your spine. And yeah, you know how this story ends by now. After nine games with the Iowa Wild, Shaw returned and proved he was ready to rejoin Minnesota for their playoff push. The Wild fell short and largely appeared demoralized, but you could always count on No. 15 not to take anything for granted. He scored just one goal and two assists in 20 games, but Shaw delivered in a season where fans needed some feel-good moments. It'd be a marvel to see Shaw playing as well and as hard as he did on one knee. After four surgeries, that count is closer to negative two knees. It doesn't matter, though, as he's a high-end defensive fourth-liner, has flashed some penalty kill brilliance, and brings so much energy and grit to a lineup despite his small frame. It's also fair to think he has more offense to give than we've seen so far, given how rarely he's played at 100%. The Wild might have moved on from Shaw, and the Jets may only have offered him a two-way deal, meaning he hasn't guaranteed a spot in Winnipeg. But don't expect Shaw to stick with the Manitoba Moose. If his defensive acumen and hustle aren't going to get him to stick with Winnipeg, it'll be how great of a teammate he is. "He's in the middle of everything," Army said in 2023. "He's an infectious personality, and he's highly engaging... He looks out for guys... [and] guys want to follow him." There's not a locker room in the league that shouldn't want someone like Shaw in there. It's hard to say anything else except: It kicked ass to watch Shaw pour his heart and soul into this organization. Here's hoping he gets another decade in the league.

There's a familiar axiom that goes something like, "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good." Most people can relate to it. You can spend days, weeks, months, and even years endlessly tinkering with something that's good, all in the name of getting it perfect. Maybe getting something perfect is necessary. But more often than not, the time spent attaining perfection offers diminishing returns, and that's if perfection is possible to begin with. Most of the time, good works really well and saves you unnecessary time, energy, and stress. We're seeing credible reports that the Wild may trade 20-goal-scoring rookie Marco Rossi this summer. Perhaps very soon, with Michael Russo mentioning on May 28's "Worst Seats in the House" Podcast, "that [this] month, at a minimum, Marco Rossi is being dangled out there" in trade talks. The biggest reason for this is that, it appears, perfect is the enemy of good. They could have Rossi at center, but what if they had a bigger, stronger player there instead? The Wild might be able to get the kind of player they're looking for, but that's a risky proposition when the team has a dependable, 20-goal, 40-point, 22-year-old center in Rossi. That's not just "good," It's one of the only times the Wild have had that situation at center in franchise history. Look at the centers the team has developed in their 20-plus-year history, and the list is two: Mikko Koivu and Joel Eriksson Ek. Minnesota doesn't even get to settle for "good," but they're apparently willing to jettison that to chase "perfect." It's a frustrating proposition in itself, but it's compounded whenever those close to the team explain what, exactly, Minnesota isn't getting in Rossi. The answers are easily disproven, contradictory, or bizarre, and the discussion on that episode of "Worst Seats in the House" highlights each flaw to the criticisms. (Editor's Note: Before continuing -- it's worth acknowledging that the following commentary from, specifically, Russo and Ryan Carter, are attempting to offer insight into the front office's thinking and not necessarily their own opinions. The following will be approaching these as the Wild's brass' likely views and not trying to pin these as the personal opinions of any media personality.) The driving critique might be whether or not he's a top-six center or not, in their eyes. "Is he a future No. 1 or No. 2 line center, or is he a third-line center on a good team?" Russo asked. "I'll bet you that is what's going through the mind of the Wild organization. Maybe they're just not trusting... that he has a spot in that top-six." Minnesota's answer to this conundrum will perhaps be trading Rossi. Wrong answer. The correct response is: Who cares? If Rossi's upside is that of a third-line center on a good team, congrats: They've found their third-line center! If the club believes Rossi is a third-line center on a "good team" and foresees Danila Yurov or Riley Heidt leap-frogging Rossi on the depth chart, then what's the problem here? The Wild would see Rossi as a third-line center on a good, contending team, and they'd have the depth to put him in that ideal position. That would be great news for Minnesota, whose goal, presumably, is to be... a good team! The stereotype of a Third-Line Center is unglamorous and undervalued. People hear that term and think of a low-scoring forward banging against the other team's more physical players. It's much more crucial than that, at least, for the good teams with depth at center. All you have to do is look at the good teams that made the Stanley Cup Final. Who is the Edmonton Oilers third-line center? Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, the former No. 1 overall pick. Nugent-Hopkins isn't a typical "bottom-six" type of player, and calling him a "third-line center" underscores how much Edmonton uses him. At 5-on-5 play (removing special teams from the equation), "RNH" is fifth among Oilers forwards in time on ice per game. He's a "bottom-six" forward on paper, but in reality, he's eating "top-six" amounts of minutes. Look across to the Florida Panthers, who represent the Eastern Conference in the Cup Final, and there's Anton Lundell. You'll find Lundell as the third-line center on anyone's line charts, but is he a "bottom-six" forward in practice? Nope. Lundell is fifth in even-strength time on ice for the Panthers. We're not in the days of a third-line center being a one-way, Kyle Brodziak-type player anymore. That's to say, if the Wild see Rossi as a third-line center on a good team, that is a spot that is probably the fifth-most valuable forward role on the team. Why give that up to try finding greener pastures? If you have a 22-year-old who can hold that position, keep them and build around that. Looking to trade a valuable player because he "only" fills their fifth-most important need is baffling enough, but Carter's assessment of the situation is even more confounding. Carter is a former Wild player who broadcasts with Bally Sports North and hosts the team-affiliated "Wild on 7th" Podcast. While not part of the decision-making group, one can assume some familiarity with the team's thinking, being close to the team. Attempting to explain what shortcomings Rossi might have that would make him expendable, Carter explains, "Coming out of the draft, I think the Wild felt they were getting a real puck-mover, distributor-type player, where he's going to play up the middle and give the puck to the scorers on the flank. And I don't think Rossi has turned out to be that. We're talking about him being a 20-goal scorer. "And give him credit, he put weight on in the summer, and he's able to produce goals," Carter continued. "To me, it looks like he watched game tape of Eriksson Ek, and he's turning into a smaller version of Eriksson Ek, where he scores his goals in the paint. But you don't see a lot of distributors of the puck scoring in the paint. They play on the perimeter, they find space, they know passing lines. Rossi might have that skill, but that's not what they're getting at the moment." Carter concludes that the issue is a matter of fit rather than necessarily skill. "He's not their 15-to-20-goal-scorer, 60-assist type of guy. I think that was maybe the upside for Rossi on draft day. And what does Matt Boldy need on the second line? A true puck-mover, someone who can make plays and find him to score the goals. Is Rossi that?... He's different from what they thought they were getting." If those thoughts reflect the Wild's approach to Rossi, that should raise alarm bells for Wild fans. It's letting perfect be the enemy of good. Despite all of the Wild's apparent hand-wringing over Rossi's size, they have a player who gets to the net regularly (and without missing a game in 2023-24) and plays similarly to Eriksson Ek, their No. 1 center. He takes matters into his own hands by going to the greasy areas to score goals and doesn't stay out of the fray on the perimeter. And this is all... a bad fit? How? Look through as many scouting reports as you'd like, for as long as you'd like. You won't find one that criticizes a smaller player for not being on the perimeter enough. Or even a larger player -- look at how long the team has begged Boldy to play the way Rossi does! In the hockey world, it's almost universally a criticism -- or at least a limitation -- to note that someone is a "perimeter player." Except, maybe, when the Wild are looking at Rossi and considering his future with the team. If the Wild are disappointed that Rossi has fashioned himself into an Eriksson Ek clone or that he doesn't play, say, Marcus Johansson's perimeter game, it's patently absurd. A GM should be willing to trade members of their immediate families to land a 22-year-old Eriksson Ek-caliber center. Behind any forward who racks up 60 assists on less than 20 goals is a coach that'd reach into their pocket to pay the player twice their salary if they got to the net occasionally. If any of this reflects why Minnesota would dangle Rossi on the trade market, it reads as "It's not you, it's me" levels of break-up excuse-making. The Wild are still in a decades-long center drought. But they finally have a young, productive center and are apparently disappointed with having one that didn't quite match the center of their dreams. They have a good thing in Rossi and still have time to ensure they have that good thing into the future. All they have to do is not make perfect the enemy of good.

On some blessed day, we'll have zero Marco Rossi trade whispers to discuss. Unfortunately, today is not that day. With the end of the Minnesota Wild season behind us, we're getting some idea of how the Wild, with limited options to improve their team, intend to shake things up before the start of next year. Unless the Wild want to make a major, risky move involving Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek, or Matt Boldy, Rossi is the most established NHLer who could move the needle. Trading Rossi appears to be something Minnesota is very open to doing, if The Athletic's Joe Smith and Michael Russo have the correct read on Bill Guerin's thinking. In a Wednesday mailbag, they wrote the chances of such a deal happening were "higher than you'd think." Why move a 20-goal scorer at center before he turns 23? "If the Wild could trade Rossi for the same level of high-end prospect, but one who's bigger and faster, there's a real chance they'd pull the trigger," Smith and Russo outlined. This naturally leads to the follow-up question. How do you do that without losing depth at center? "It doesn't have to be a center," the beat writers wrote, addressing that concern. "They envision Danila Yurov playing center once he makes it to the NHL.... Also, the Wild plan to give Riley Heidt every chance to make the team in the fall." Lest we think this is simply the pet theory of The Athletic's brain trust, Guerin didn't leave room for much else when detailing his vision on the radio. "I think our [defense] is pretty set if we're healthy," Guerin said on Judd Zulgad's "Judd's Hockey Show" podcast. "[At] forward, we can stand to get a little bigger." Taking a quick look at forwards under 6-foot-0 and without trade protection on the Wild, the list is Kaprizov, Rossi, Marat Khusnutdinov, and AHL call-up Vinni Lettieri. Uh-oh. It's difficult to grasp why a front office that watches Rossi nightly would seek to trade him, particularly for being too small. Yes, Rossi is 5-foot-9; the height chart doesn't lie. But there's a difference between being short and being small, and much like the 5-foot-10 Kaprizov, Rossi doesn't play small. In January, EP Rinkside's Mitch Brown offered a detailed breakdown of Rossi's game. It's easy to look at "20 goals," but Brown was blown away elsewhere. "The key to Rossi's early success hasn't been his skill level but his nuanced checking game," he declared. What makes up that checking game? Look at the following highlight reel of Brown's praise for Rossi: Rossi is steadily becoming a master of winning body positioning... Evasive and deceptive with a defender on his back... Often initiates contact and wins inside positioning four or five times [in a shift]... Leverages his physical skills to impact the game without touching the puck... He lifts sticks and rushes the net... He pins opponents, trapping their feet with his own... Rossi punishes players who venture too close with reverse hits." (Emphasis mine.) Take out "5-foot-9" from the equation just for a moment: Does any of that read like a small player? Or even a player that's too small to handle the rigors of the center position? No, and if a scout can see all of these ways Rossi maximizes his frame and imposes his will against bigger opponents, why can't Guerin, a veteran of 1263 NHL games? Now let's talk about those goals. For one, there were 21 of them! There aren't many things in Wild history rarer than a 20-goal center. Since the NHL started tracking faceoffs in 2007-08, there are only six Wild centers who've registered more than 300 faceoff wins and scored 20-plus goals. Here they are: Joel Eriksson Ek (2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24) Eric Staal (2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19) Ryan Hartman (2021-22, 2023-24) Mikko Koivu (2008-09, 2009-10) Marco Rossi (2023-24) Kyle Brodziak (2011-12) Rossi is the youngest center on that list to hit the 20-goal mark. The only center who comes close is Koivu, who scored 20 goals in his age-23 season. Everyone else was 25 or older. Rossi being this good offensively and this fast while handling his business defensively is such a rare thing in Minnesota's history. Again, we need to look at being short versus playing small. The goals Rossi scores aren't on the perimeter, and he doesn't shy away from the hardest areas of the ice. Like Eriksson Ek, who has six inches and 25 lbs. on his Austrian counterpart, Rossi thrives at the front of the net. The average distance on Rossi's 5-on-5 goals was 14.76 feet, nearly three feet closer to the net than Eriksson Ek (17.52 feet). Then it must be mentioned how 18 of Rossi's 21 goals were at 5-on-5 play. That matches Boldy and is tied for second (behind Kaprizov) on the Wild. But it's even better than that. Rossi finished the year tied for 39th in the NHL in 5-on-5 goals alongside much more traditional power forwards like Boldy (6-foot-2), Alex Tuch (6-foot-4), Brandon Saad (6-foot-1), Brock Boeser (6-foot-1), and Owen Tippett (6-foot-1). Among centers, Rossi's looking even better, as you can see from the 5-on-5 goal totals from players with 400-plus faceoffs: 1) Auston Matthews: 38 2) Nathan MacKinnon: 36 3) Brayden Point: 28 4) Sidney Crosby: 23 T-5) Brock Nelson: 22 T-5) Wyatt Johnston: 22 T-7) J.T. Miller: 20 T-7) Tyler Seguin: 20 T-9) Connor McDavid: 19 T-9) Evgeni Malkin: 19 T-9) Jason Dickinson: 19 T-12) Marco Rossi: 18 T-12) Nico Hischier: 18 T-15) Bo Horvat: 17 T-15) Nick Bjugstad: 17 T-15) Nick Suzuki: 17 Despite most seeing him as a playmaker as a prospect, Rossi's scoring isn't a fluke. He ranked 70th in the NHL with 15.1 expected goals, out-generating players like Tim Stützle, Kevin Fiala, Ryan O'Reilly, Suzuki, and more. It's not only sustainable success but something he can use as a stepping stone for a true breakout year. Guerin and the Wild front office got to watch Rossi through all 82 games. They should know all the subtleties that make up his game and have him playing much bigger than the height and weight chart lists him as. If Minnesota is somehow unable to look past his being 5-foot-9 and trades him because of that, it could be not only a short-sighted move but a critical failure of talent evaluation.

If you're looking for the word that will define the Minnesota Wild's offseason, you might want to place your bets on "expendable." Minnesota will be facing the second consecutive season with a salary cap artificially deflated by $14.7 million due to the Zach Parise/Ryan Suter buyouts. Presumably, they'll want to improve this bubble team but will have only around $2 million to fill four or five roster spots. That's going to lead to difficult choices. Fans, the media, and the front office must ask themselves, who's expendable? Who can we most afford to lose? Looking through that framework, it's hard to see a future where this summer isn't focused on a conversation surrounding two Wild players: Captain Jared Spurgeon and potential Calder Trophy finalist Marco Rossi. Why those two names in particular? With Spurgeon, it's a hunch. But aside from Kirill Kaprizov, Spurgeon is the player who would free up the most cap space in a trade. The $7.575 million Minnesota could recoup in cap space would be tempting, especially as Spurgeon is coming off a season-ending injury and will turn 35 next November. For the first time in years, moving Spurgeon would be theoretically possible because his full No-Movement Clause will shrink to a 10-team no-trade list. The pieces are there, even if we're not hearing any rumors about it (yet). With Rossi, there's actual smoke surrounding his trade speculation. On February 28, leading up to the trade deadline, The Athletic's Michael Russo and Joe Smith heavily hinted that a Rossi move could be on the table, even after a rookie season where he's put up 18 goals and 17 assists in 69 games. "We're still not convinced the Wild are ready to commit to him long-term," the insiders wrote of the 22-year-old, who is tied for fourth on the team in goals. "[But] the trade deadline is typically not the time to trade a young asset like this. That's a summer move." Smith elaborated on the point in a March 4 mailbag when a reader asked if incoming Marat Khusnutdinov could be behind the speculation around Rossi. "The skilled Russian isn't the reason Minnesota might listen on Rossi this summer," he explained. "To me, the Wild said everything about their belief in Rossi last spring when they signed Freddy Gaudreau, then Ryan Hartman in September [to extensions]." While he doesn't outright say the word, "expendable" was the dominant flavor in outlining Bill Guerin's possible logic. "A franchise often short on centers has Joel Eriksson Ek, Khusnutdinov, Rossi, Gaudreau, and Hartman up the middle, plus Riley Heidt expected to make his case [in training] camp," wrote Smith. "Rossi could be a player the Wild move this offseason if the right deal comes up." You'll hear similar logic if and when Spurgeon's trade speculation arises. Brock Faber plays the right side of the defense, Spurgeon's position, and looks like a No. 1 option. Zach Bogosian had a strong year filling in the second pair with Spurgeon out. Can the Wild backfill that third-pairing role and move on? Is Spurgeon expendable? Is Rossi? The Wild will be better off if their answer is a resounding No in both cases. We can start with Spurgeon, with whom we have a very compelling reason to believe he is not expendable: He wasn't expendable this season. The Wild are three points behind the Vegas Golden Knights in the playoffs. In theory, they aren't four back because Spurgeon gave them 1.0 Standings Points Above Replacement (SPAR) in just 16 games for Minnesota this season. If the Wild squeak into the playoffs, a small amount of playing time from a clearly hurt Spurgeon might end up being the difference. And a healthy-ish Spurgeon would make a difference if he were in the lineup. Since turning 30, Spurgeon averages 5.46 SPAR per 82 games. Concerns about Spurgeon's durability tend to be overblown (until this year), as from ages 29 to 33, he played in 342 of a possible 371 games or 92.2%. But let's be on the pessimistic side and even limit him to 50 more games this season (66 total). That would add, on average... 3.32 points. Even rounded down, Spurgeon would be the difference between Minnesota being tied for a playoff spot and the 23.5% odds they have today. By definition, that isn't expendable. Expending Spurgeon (involuntarily) might well cost them a playoff spot. While injuries will undoubtedly be a question, Spurgeon's age is less of one than you might think. No player is guaranteed to age gracefully, of course. However, players who compare to Spurgeon tend to do better than average. Evolving-Hockey lists Francois Beauchemin, Brian Campbell, Mark Giordano, Niklas Kronwall, Paul Martin, Anton Stralman, Ryan Suter, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, and Shea Weber as his most similar skaters. How did those players fare in their age-35 year and beyond? Kronwall and Martin went sour immediately, with Stralman and Vlasic turning in below-replacement SPAR seasons within a year. Injuries forced Weber into LTIRetirement, wiping off the Montreal Canadiens' cap obligations from the books, which is probably a wash. But Beauchemin and Robidas squeezed out positive-value years at ages 35 and 36. Campbell played through age-37, finishing with 10.4 in three seasons -- all above replacement level. Giordano (age-39, 13.1 SPAR since age-35) and Suter (age-38, 5.8 SPAR since age-35) have yet to post below-replacement level seasons. As for Rossi, it's a bit mind-boggling that Minnesota could somehow not be sold on their best rookie center ever. Even after a recent 10-game pointless streak, Rossi still rates as one of Minnesota's best players at 5-on-5. Here's how he ranks in some crucial categories: Goals per hour: Third (behind Matt Boldy, Kirill Kaprizov) Points per hour: Fifth (behind Boldy, Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek, Ryan Hartman) Individual Expected Goals per hour: Third (behind Eriksson Ek, Kaprizov) Penalties Drawn: First Goals For%: Fifth (behind Spurgeon, Marcus Foligno, Jonas Brodin, Eriksson Ek) Expected Goals For%: Fifth (behind Spurgeon, Boldy, Kaprizov, Eriksson Ek) On-Ice Expected Goals per hour: Fourth (behind Kaprizov, Boldy, Eriksson Ek) The caveat is that it'd have to be "the right deal," but what's "the right deal" for your fourth-best forward and second-best center? No one is untouchable, theoretically. But there's also a reason we're not hearing fellow Wild rookie Brock Faber's name as being available in "the right deal." It's a ludicrous notion to trade him and unrealistic to think a team would offer enough to tempt Minnesota. So why is Rossi, apparently, obtainable? It has to be said: The Wild don't have too many centers. That isn't possible. And if the Wild are arrogant enough to believe they have enough to make Rossi expendable, they're headed for a massive fall. Having players like Gaudreau (age-30, -1.6 SPAR this season, career 1.0 SPAR with Minnesota) and even a very good but soon-to-be-30 Hartman factor into how a team handles their young assets is ludicrous. Sure, there are upcoming prospects like Khusnutdinov, Heidt, and Danila Yurov, who the team believes can play center. All three are very good, interesting prospects. They also have a combined 18 fewer goals and 34 fewer points than Rossi has in his career. Rossi has proved that he can play a top-six center role. Khusnutdinov has played three NHL games. As spectacular as Yurov has been in the KHL, they drafted him as a winger. Heidt's breakout season in the WHL is impressive, but he won't turn 19 until Monday. As fun as it is to dream on these guys, any one of them could be just okay. Or have to move to the wing to be successful. Or fail to grab an NHL roster spot altogether. Trading Rossi -- a 22-year-old top-six center -- means counting on these players to deliver. If that's the case, they must be right in their evaluations. But even if Khusnutdinov, Heidt, and Yurov all hit and become NHL-caliber centers, shouldn't that be exactly what Minnesota wants? Why trade Rossi and blow a hole in that coveted depth chart of pivots? The Dallas Stars demolished the Wild in the playoffs last year and did so on the backs of their incredible center depth. Jamie Benn, Tyler Seguin, Joe Pavelski, Roope Hintz, and Wyatt Johnston were all top-six caliber centermen. Once Pavelski went down, Seguin stepped right in and terrorized Minnesota. Meanwhile, Joel Eriksson Ek got hurt, and the Wild's top-six centers suddenly became Hartman and Sam Steel. What did Dallas do to that surplus this offseason? They beefed it up, signing Matt Duchene while hoarding their precious pile of center depth. Having two full lines worth of top-six centers explains why they're neck-and-neck with the Winnipeg Jets and Colorado Avalanche in the race to first place in the Central Division. Now look at Minnesota, whose playoff push might be stalled after injuries to Eriksson Ek and Brodin. Suddenly, Rossi is probably the only impact center on the roster, depending on how you feel about Hartman, and Faber is the only impact defenseman on the blueline. We know how dire this looks with Spurgeon out of the mix. What happens if Rossi goes, too? It's very simple: No team can have enough blue-chip players, impact defensemen, or good, young centers. Elite teams don't give those guys away; they load up. Suppose the Wild feel they have a surplus at these crucial positions and decide to trade from these strengths. Then it will be very difficult to make it to the other side of such a deal closer to, and not further away from, Stanley Cup contention.

Let the Danila Yurov era begin. Yurov will officially join the Minnesota Wild this season. While the KHL season extends until the end of May, according to his agent and KHL reporter Daria Tuboltseva, Yurov plans to travel to North America after his season ends in Russia. Reporter Marco D’Amico informed Hockey Wilderness, “We spoke with Danila Yurov's agent, and they confirmed having refused Metallurg's latest contract extension attempts and have informed them that Yurov will seek to sign his ELC at season's end.” That’s wonderful news for Minnesota because Yurov could be a future franchise cornerstone at either center or wing. The Wild took him 22nd overall in the 2022 draft, and while he’s been less productive this year than last, he’s displayed game-changing skills in the KHL. He’s only recorded 20 points in 37 games with Metallurg Magnitogorsk. However, he suffered an injury early in the year that may have slowed him down. However, he looked special last season, recording 49 points in 62 games while leading the team in scoring as a 20-year-old. In his first and second seasons after the Wild drafted him, Yurov scored 27 goals and 58 points in 84 games. That’s the most for a player his age in KHL history, even more than Kirill Kaprizov. Yurov broke Vladamir Taresenko’s KHL record for most points in a season by a 20-year-old player. Yurov could have made his way over to Minnesota after the conclusion of last season but chose to sign a one-year deal to play another season in the KHL. The Wild were comfortable with him staying and developing one more season in Russia. At the 2022 draft, Yurov said his goal was to play in the NHL one day and that he wanted to come to Minnesota. It had taken the Wild five years after drafting Kaprizov in the fifth round of the 2015 draft to get him to America. They wanted Yurov to arrive earlier. However, the Wild may not have the roster slots or cap space to bring Yurov over and have him play NHL games this season. Mettalurg is currently third in their division, putting them in the playoff hunt. Bringing Yurov over will not be like the Marat Khusnutdinov situation because of Yurov’s importance to the team's success and desire to contend in the playoffs. Khusnutdinov previously played for Sochi, who missed the playoffs. Magnitogorsk would have to terminate Yurov’s contract, and it most likely won’t do that with one of their star players. It appears that Yurov will be a full-time member of the Wild in 2025-26, joining fellow Russians Kaprizov and Khusnutdinov. Yurov could take a spot on the wing or play a role up the middle. The Wild believe he has the potential to fill either role. By declining his KHL offer, Yurov is creating genuine hope for Wild fans and the organization, given his unique abilities. Yurov has the tools to be a star in the league, and now it’s time to wait with anticipation, not trepidation, for his arrival. All stats and data via Elite Prospect and Hockey Prospecting unless otherwise noted.

When we wrote about Marco Rossi's game evolving during the season on Friday, we weren't expecting him to add a new wrinkle one day later. But that's the kind of thing that happens when you watch a player take "The Leap," so we've got to write more about it. On Saturday morning, Mats Zuccarello instructed the 23-year-old center in practice: Pass more. With Kirill Kaprizov's 23 goals out of the lineup, it's hard to fathom why you'd tell someone to score fewer goals. However, Rossi took the advice, and it worked like a dream. Rossi was dominant offensively despite having zero shots on goal, getting assists on all four goals in a 4-0 blanking of a 23-14-2 Carolina Hurricanes team. His passes were so smooth and on-point that you'd never know this was only Rossi's fourth multi-assist game in 143 career games. And, like most dominant outings, he had multiple passes that easily could have resulted in more goals. No one's about to turn up their nose at a young center on pace for 30 goals, but this was a coming-out party for the version of Rossi that led the OHL in assists during his draft year. Our Kaprizov-less Rossi point count is up to 11 in six games (these past five, plus November 23). His Kaprizov-like run as the team's offensive catalyst is vaulting him into the conversation of being among the best players in the NHL. Evolving-Hockey has two stats to measure a player's performance: Goals Above Replacement and xGoals Above Replacement. By both models, Rossi is a top-20 player in the league this year, worth 3.4 points in each metric. The only other NHLers in the top 20 in both metrics are Leon Draisaitl, Quinn Hughes, Cale Makar, Tom Wilson, Lucas Raymond, and Brandon Hagel. That's elite company, and it gets better when we look at it through a historical lens. The low-hanging fruit is how good Rossi has been compared to young players throughout Minnesota Wild history. We get it, it's a low bar to clear. Still, Rossi finds himself in elite company when you stack up his first 40 games against every Under-24 player in franchise history. When you're out-pacing Rookie Kaprizov and Matt Boldy on a list... that's nice. That's real nice. Then you look at the all-around value Rossi's provided to the team, and he's got numbers that look an awful lot like the top centers of the last decade and a half. Let's look at the top seasons from an age-22 center since the 2007-08 season (Evolving-Hockey's age cut-off is by draft year, hence why he's 22 here) and see where Rossi stacks up. GAR/60 By An Age-22 Center: Alex Wennberg, 2017-18: 0.964 Jonathan Toews, 2011-12: 0.962 Brayden Point, 2018-19: 0.941 Matt Duchene, 2013-14: 0.916 MARCO ROSSI, 2024-25: 0.901 Auston Matthews, 2020-21: 0.859 Sidney Crosby, 2009-10: 0.848 David Krejčí, 2008-09: 0.842 Nathan MacKinnon, 2017-18: 0.806 Ryan Getzlaf, 2007-08: 0.804 Obviously, Wennberg is the big outlier here (and his drop-off can be explained by a history of concussions), but it's more enlightening to look at the rest of the list. Crosby and Toews are slam-dunk Hall of Famers. Matthews and MacKinnon are Hart Trophy winners. Ryan Getzlaf had over 1,000 points in his career, and Duchene (846 points at age 34) might join him in that group. Brayden Point has almost 600 points before turning 29. Outside of Wennberg, the "worst case" in the top 10 is Krejčí, the No. 2 center behind Patrice Bergeron on a perennially contending Boston Bruins team that won a Stanley Cup. Still, 786 points in 1,032 games is nothing to sneeze at from an offensive standpoint. Rossi is the best asset any team could have right now: A young, productive No. 1 center. He's played every game since last season. He's produced without power play time, he's produced with power play minutes, he's produced with Kaprizov, he's produced more without Kaprizov. Dating back to last season, Rossi and Brock Faber are the only Wild players not to miss a game. There's nothing left to prove, and it's time to pay up. Our last update on Rossi's future with Minnesota came from Michael Russo on December 26's "Worst Seats In the House" podcast -- five games and nine points ago. While Rossi doesn't appear to be on the trade block, the Wild are still in wait-and-see mode on a contract extension, with Kaprizov's final number on his mega-extension being the reason to wait. The Wild's priority No. 1 is undoubtedly ensuring Kaprizov stays in the State of Hockey for years to come. But Rossi is quickly becoming 1A. Assuming we're seeing the Real Rossi -- which feels fairly safe, given his draft pedigree -- it's almost impossible to overpay for what he brings to the table. He's a dynamic, two-way center on pace to score 31 goals and 76 points. The track record of centers who've produced to that degree at such a young age is very, very good. Then add in the defensive excellence he's showing, and we're talking about a player who can help Joel Eriksson Ek tilt the ice in the Wild's favor for years to come. NHL front offices must build around their stars, and they need to build down the middle. Rossi fits both criteria. Heading into the season, Evolving-Hockey projected the AAV of a long-term (seven-year) Rossi extension to be $5.7 million. That's not a realistic price anymore. Looking at his peers from the 2020 Draft, Tim Stützle (40 points in 38 games this year) has an AAV of $8.35, Lucas Raymond (41 points in 39 games) just signed for $8.08 million per year, and Alexis Lafrenière (21 points in 38 games) is making $7.45 million. Rossi's number has to start with an "8." And if you're the Wild, you have to do it while laughing about getting another young star through their prime for a bargain. Minnesota can figure out the rest later. By the time Kaprizov's extension kicks in, the NHL will (presumably) have raised the cap twice, and Mats Zuccarello's money will be off the books. If Minnesota has to trade a lesser player to make the overall picture work, that's the price you have to pay. Remember -- the goal is to keep Kaprizov long-term and to set themselves up to build a Cup winner around him. Kaprizov might score 100 points this season, even with 70 games. Locking down Kaprizov's center from his best-ever season has to sweeten the pot, no? The Wild can go to him and say, We're not just dumping money on you, but we're setting you up with the Nicklas Bäckström to your Alex Ovechkin for the next eight years. Minnesota presumably had a chance to get in on the ground floor and didn't. That was a mistake. They don't have to make it again. The Wild can lock up their No. 1 center through his '20s and ensure that Rossi's rapidly-growing game doesn't lead to a rapidly-growing price tag.

By the time Saturday's Minnesota Wild game starts, the team will have heisted No. 6 overall pick David Jiricek from the Columbus Blue Jackets. Daemon Hunt, the Wild's most NHL-ready defense prospect, will be sent the other way along with a first-round pick in 2025, a third in 2026, a second in 2027, and a pick swap, per Michael Russo. The move doesn't come as a surprise, it's been in the ether for the last week. But now we know it's happening, we know the Wild beat out the other offers, and we know the hit to Minnesota's prospect capital. Having seen it all laid out, this is a decisive win for Bill Guerin and his front office. Should the Wild unlock his potential, they have the final missing piece to their youth movement. The Wild's under-25 movement was strong as hell earlier this week, having nearly everything a good, growing team needs. A star winger? Check, there's Matt Boldy. A potential (current?) No. 1 center? Hello, Marco Rossi. A guaranteed, bedrock top-pair defenseman? There's Brock Faber, right there. High-upside forward prospects? Danila Yurov and Riley Heidt have entered the chat. A bonafide power play quarterback that's nearly NHL-ready? That's what drafting Zeev Buium was for. A goalie of the future? We all know about Jesper Wallstedt The only question -- other than whether the Yurovs, Heidts, and Buiums would pan out -- was their defensive depth beyond Faber and Buium. The Wild had invested heavily in defense prospects at the 2020 and 2022 Drafts, spending top-70 picks on Ryan O'Rourke, Hunt, Carson Lambos, and Jack Peart. Despite the investment, only Hunt trended as NHL-ready in the near future. Beyond that, Minnesota wasn't able to land their Owen Power, Jake Sanderson, or Moritz Seider-type defenseman -- a defenseman with premium size and a top-four-caliber skill set. They'd also struggled to backfill the right side of the defense past Faber, with David Spacek being their only top right-shot defenseman. That's why Minnesota gave up three assets to get Jiricek. At 6-foot-3, 204 pounds, he brings beef, skill, and a right-shot to the next generation of Wild players. As soon as the end of the season, the Wild could theoretically ice a starting lineup that includes: Yurov - Rossi - Boldy Buium - Jiricek Wallstedt That's a tantalizing collection of young talent, even before realizing that the Wild would have Faber in the back. And Faber with those two makes Minnesota a potential defensive powerhouse for years to come. The collection of pure, raw talent on the Wild blueline is now at incredible levels. Before the season, Corey Pronman released his rankings of Under-23 players and prospects. Buium slotted in at No. 16 (sixth among defensemen), Faber at No. 35 (11th among d-men), and Jiricek 47th (17th among d-men). Only the New Jersey Devils -- with Luke Hughes, Anton Silayev, and Simon Nemec -- rival that quantity of high-upside defense talent. But it's even better. Again, Jiricek gives Minnesota more talent and a diversity of skills. Here's the elevator pitch on all three of those top names, per Pronman: Buium: He is an extremely intelligent puck-mover who can run a power play like a top NHL player. He makes high-end plays routinely and can break shifts open with his puckhandling and passes. Faber: His excellent skating, gap work and compete have helped him become a great defender who kills a lot of plays, but the offense he showed this season was a pleasant surprise. Jiricek: He's very skilled, especially for a big man, and combined with a strong point shot, he should provide offense in the NHL. I like his defensive edge and thought he showed he could be a great two-way player at other levels. There's some overlap, but Minnesota now has three defensemen who fill three vital roles. The bloom has fallen ever-so-slightly off the rose with Jiricek, but Pronman's player comparable for him in 2022 was Alex Pietrangelo -- massive praise from the usually conservative draft analyst. Leading up to the 2024 Draft, Pronman tabbed Buium as a young Morgan Rielly. Faber has been a right-shot Jonas Brodin with surprising offensive chops. That sort of well-rounded blueline is hard to find, even among elite NHL clubs. As for the price, it's a big "Who cares?" from Minnesota's perspective. Hunt's future was likely as a third-pairing defenseman who could crack the top-4 in a pinch. The Wild's 2025 first-round pick is trending to be in the 20s, and perhaps the late-20s. Even if Minnesota would hit on that pick, it likely wouldn't have the upside of Jiricek and a much longer timetable to get a return on investment. A third-rounder in 2026 or second in 2027 is downright negligible. More importantly: the Wild got this deal done without sacrificing their forward depth, particularly NHL-ready, middle-six winger Liam Öhgren, who brings skill and physicality to the pool that would be hard for Minnesota to replace. They get a huge boost in near-term upside without sacrificing anything for the 2025 season when the Wild's Cup ambitions truly begin. Minnesota will need to unlock Jiricek's potential in a way that Columbus couldn't do, but the reward in acquiring Jiricek vastly outweighs the risk.

All the talk about the Minnesota Wild’s 2024 draft focused on Zeeb Buium (12th overall) and Aron Kiviharju. Both players are smooth-skating defensemen and draft steals for the Wild. However, the Wild also got another steal when they took Prince Albert’s Ryder Ritchie in the second round. Ritchie is the only forward Minnesota took in this draft class, but it got a stud with the 45th pick who has all the tools to be a modern-day NHL star. He’ll need to add a little strength and weight to his 6’0” frame. However, he’s skilled with the puck and has a lethal shot. The Western Hockey League (WHL) named Ritchie was named the Rookie of the Year in 2022-23 after he recorded 20 goals and 35 assists in 61 games. The Calgary native then put the league on notice at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup with nine points in five games. However, Ritchie had a disappointing sophomore season in the WHL because he missed 14 games due to injury, and it took him a bit to get back up to speed. With just 44 points in 47 games, Ritchie was just under a point per game. Still, he almost matched his goal total in 14 fewer games. Prince Albert was not one of the top teams in the WHL, but they added a ton of talent through the WHL Draft. Therefore, it’s not unreasonable to hope Ritchie hits triple digits next season. Ritchie has all the tools to be an effective top-six winger in the NHL. His puckhandling and quick feet complement his shot, and he’s a strong skater. He also has the attitude and tenacity to excel at the next level. The Wild should be excited about his offensive future. “Ritchie can take over shifts with his high energy and workhorse attitude,” Steven Ellis wrote at the Daily Faceoff. “And his shot – good luck blocking that.” “I think I’m an offensive forward,” Ritchie said at the draft. “I think I can create a lot of offense for myself and my teammates. I think I have a lot of skill, a good hockey IQ, and I have a high competitor. I’m a competitor, and I love to win, so can’t wait to bring that.” “Ritchie’s both a scoring and playmaking threat,” his Elite Prospects profile reads. “He combines give-and-goes with crossovers and east-west movement, constantly shifting the defense and creating gaps. Just when opponents think they’ve figured him out, he cuts back and finds the trailer. “His shot, in particular, is a constant threat. There are zero tells inside his release, transferring his weight suddenly and hiding his blade the whole time. He adapts to tricky passes and instantly fires them, even under pressure.” Like many young players, Ritchie is plagued by a lack of consistency. While his high-end skill is enticing, he must show it more consistently during his third year in the WHL. “As an offensive winger who didn’t score a ton in junior this year, Ritchie isn’t likely to be a super early draft pick,” Logan Horn wrote at The Hockey Writers. “When the WHL season began, it looked like Ritchie would have a real chance to go in the top-16, but that won’t happen. I do think his offensive game, and growth spurt, will make him a first-rounder, though I think he’s most likely going to be a late first type of guy, probably in the 24-32 range.” Below is a collection of all the draft rankings for Ritchie: TSN/Bob McKenzie: 21st Smaht Scouting: 26th NHL CS (NA Skaters): 16th THW/Baracchini: 27th THW/Forbes: 18th THW/Horn: 23rd 2024 NHL Entry Draft: Ranked #22 by Elite Prospects 2024 NHL Entry Draft: Ranked #37 by ISS Hockey 2024 NHL Entry Draft: Ranked #31 by FCHockey 2024 NHL Entry Draft: Ranked #32 by TSN/Craig Button 2024 NHL Entry Draft: Ranked #26 by McKeen's Hockey 2024 NHL Entry Draft: Ranked #19 by NHL Central Scouting The Wild got him with the 45th overall pick. The Ritchie pick reminded me a lot of the Hunter Haight pick in 2022. A second-round forward who has all the skill and offensive potential in the world but needs to work on the defensive side of the game to be a complete player. While Ritchie is the only forward in this class and is not getting all the headlines, he’s not a prospect you should overlook. All stats and data via Elite Prospects and HockeyDB unless otherwise noted.

Charlie Stramel was supposed to hit the reset button this season. Coach Tony Granato coached the Wisconsin Badgers to one of their worst seasons in recent memory and put pressure on 18-year-old Stramel immediately as a top-line center. Stramel only mustered five goals and 12 points in 33 games in his freshman season. Everything about the following summer screamed fresh start. The Minnesota Wild still liked his physical toolkit -- namely, his 6-foot-3, 223 lbs. frame and his skating -- enough to take him with the 21st pick in the 2023 NHL Draft. Out went Granato, and in came Minnesota State Mankato coach Mike Hastings, with some of his old players following. The change should have allowed Stramel to put his freshman season behind him and spend his sophomore year on a more talented, structured team. Wisconsin got more talented and structured, finishing second in the Big Ten standings and making the NCAA tournament. But that came at a price, at least for Stramel. Hastings imported three of Wisconsin's top five forwards in scoring -- David Silye (age 25), Simon Tassy (23), and Christian Fitzgerald (21) -- from Mankato. Hockey fans know that NHL coaches like to play their guys, players they know, like, and are familiar with. Hastings was no exception, and in all fairness to him, look at the results. It didn't go well for Stramel, though. He suffered an early injury, which seemed to put him behind the 8-ball, and he never truly caught up. All of that conspired to keep him in fourth-line minutes all season, and he scored only three goals and eight points in 34 games. Nobody can spin having two straight lost seasons into being a good thing. It's also true that Stramel was perceived as a lower-ceiling player, at least compared to an immensely skilled Gabriel Perreault, who went off the board two picks later and has 18 goals and 57 points for the Frozen Four-bound Boston College Eagles. If anyone says that the New York Rangers look better for picking Perreault than the Wild for picking Stramel, that's pretty indisputable right now. All that can be true. Even so, the vitriol toward the pick on draft day was too far, and it's only ratcheted up in intensity as Stramel muddled through a season of fourth-line duty. From the jump, it's been a race to be the first (and loudest) to call Stramel a bust. There is no word yet on what the prize the NHL is offering for the winner will be. If we want to compare hit rates, though, the Minnesota Wild's scouting staff has a much stronger track record than the Fans Who Cried "Bust!" You only need to look to last year to find a high-profile miss, when people practically left Marco Rossi for dead after he scored one point in 19 games. Now, he's in the running to finish as a Calder Trophy finalist after a 20-goal season. We can do more. The same doubts were cast over Matt Boldy after he struggled through a disaster in the first half of his Draft+1 year at Boston College. Boldy scored one goal and three points in his first 15 games after the Wild made him the No. 12 overall pick in the 2019 Draft. Like Stramel, Boldy even got snubbed from Team USA's World Junior camp. Once Boldy found a role that suited him, the rest was history. And, of course, there's the Ur example of the Wild taking Joel Eriksson Ek over Burnsville native Brock Boeser in 2015. Boeser is a great player, cracking the 30-goal mark for the first time this season, with a good shot at putting up 40 goals for the Vancouver Canucks this year. You'll probably die wandering the wilderness before you find a Wild fan who would go back in time and reverse that decision. Giving the Wild fan base some credit, let's look at Danila Yurov, the guy Minnesota didn't declare a bust despite having a fairly similar journey to Stramel. When the Wild drafted Yurov at 24th overall in 2022, he was coming off a season in which he scored zero points in 40 KHL games (regular season and playoffs). The following year, he only scored 12 in 70 KHL contests. It wouldn't have been difficult to write him off, but Minnesota prospect watchers intuitively understood that Yurov's role in the KHL was not suited to what he did best. He neither got the ice time nor on-ice opportunities a prospect needs to flourish in any league. Once he did, he went out and bested the KHL points record for a 20-year-old player. If Wild fans can extend that kind of grace to a dude from Chelyabinsk, why can't they do the same for a player who grew up in Rosemount? The last time he played for a program that wasn't completely terrible and gave him more than fourth-line minutes was two years ago with the US Development Program. He scored 15 points (7 goals) in 16 USHL games and 22 points (10 goals) in 26 games with the Under-18 USA team, then 2 goals and 5 points in 6 games at the Under-18 World Juniors. Pretty good! Fans should remember that whether they liked the pick or not, there were good reasons for the Wild to take Stramel in the first round. He has a rare combination of size and skating ability, which is valuable for a team short on size for quite some time. Targeting size in the draft is probably a better way to get bigger than overpaying for free agents or trading Calder-contending rookies because they're 5'9". They should also remember that a 19-year-old kid has almost no say in any of this. A player can control what they do on the ice but can't pick where they get drafted. They can't stop their teams from changing coaches and bringing an influx of older, more experienced top-six players. They can't call their own number to boost their ice time. None of this is to say that Stramel will be a star, go down as Minnesota's best possible use of that No. 21 pick, or even have a half-decent NHL career. That's uncertain, as it is with most hockey players drafted in their 20s. Sometimes, teams get "A GUY" in Eriksson Ek. But sometimes they get "a guy" like Jack Roslovic, and sometimes you get a guy who bounces around and never quite sticks like Colin White. Anyone who can identify exactly who will become what on Draft Day, or even one or two years past it, is probably lying to you. We don't know where Stramel will end up next year, but the Wild would be doing a disservice to their top pick by not encouraging him to find some kind of fresh start. Whether that's getting on the same page as Hastings in Wisconsin, hitting the transfer portal to change schools, or switching to Major Junior, something's gotta happen because the status quo isn't working. At some point, if things do not work out for Stramel, he will be the common denominator in a string of lost seasons. But at the very least, he deserves to get a shot in a situation that isn't actively undermining him before we make that decision. If he doesn't work out in five years, there will be plenty of time to re-litigate the 2023 draft. In the meantime, it just feels like a less soul-crushing path to hope he finds a place where he can click rather than pronounce within nine months of draft day.

Marat Khusnutdinov has officially arrived, and everyone can’t help but be excited, especially Kirill Kaprizov. Minnesota Wild fans need to realize the impact Khusnutdinov will make in the locker room and on the ice. Much like how Brock Faber has shown the willingness and determination to be a star-studded player, now we get to witness Khusnutdinov showing that impact to improve the Wild’s consistency. Khusnutdinov will become the player no one can live without. Before Khusnutdinov's arrival, he called head coach John Hynes to request tapes to learn the Wild’s system. Khusnutdinov has the determination to be an impact player as a Selke-level center and the leadership to be a future captain. Khusnutdinov shows great dedication to the game due to his sacrifice, much like Joel Eriksson Ek has shown Wild fans. Khusnutdinov will create a spark once he's on the ice. Expect the rest of his linemates to also play with a jump due to his infectious energy. His mature style of game will only grow. He’s the definition of Captain Serious. But let’s not get carried away with thinking Khusnutdinov’s going to be a juggernaut. Kaprizov is still Minnesota’s star player. However, it’s not unreasonable to believe Kaprizov and Khusnutdinov can become the Wild’s version of Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. Kane was Batman for the Chicago Blackhawks when it came to production, and Toews was Robin in terms of production but was the team’s leader on their three Stanley Cup runs (2009-10, 2012-13, and 2014-15). Khusnutdinov should be Robin to Kaprizov’s Batman. Why am I mentioning Toews? Toews averaged 68 points in his career during the regular season and scored 0.87 points in his playoff career. On the other hand, Khusnutdinov is sitting at 0.48 points in 45 career playoff games. Don't let Khusnutdinov’s playoff stats scare you off. His defense rises above the occasion when needed the most. Khusnutdinov will show us heart like never before. Anthony Cirelli of the Tampa Bay Lightning does a spectacular defensive job while complimenting high-end players with his speed and has two Stanley Cups. During the 2022-23 season, Khusnutdinov showed top-line potential when he scored 41 points (11 goals and 30 assists) in 63 games for SKA St.Petersburg (KHL). Good enough for a 65-point NHL rating. It sounded like Khusnutdinov was on his way to breaking more records like Danila Yurov, who had a similar KHL experience but hardly played in 2023-24 due to SKA disrupting his development. Once SKA traded him to HK Sochi (KHL), he wasn't able to produce as much as he wanted, scoring 20 points (0 points in 6 games for SKA) in 55 games. His production decreased by 29% from 2022-23 to 2023-24. That has him sitting at a hair below top-six potential. His decline didn’t meaningfully impact his production, though. Don't let the stats fool you. Khusnutdinov brings high-end creativity to a high-energy and responsible game. Doesn't matter if he won't become a great scorer. Toews showed his value as someone who didn’t back down from challenges, which led to three Stanley Cups. Sure, Kane was the flashier player who was a unique talent. But Toews showed unparalleled dedication with a creative skillset and excellent skating ability. While Toews had more size, Khusnutdinov doesn’t let his size control how he plays. Toews averaged 68 points, which is top-line value. That would be the high-end of what Khusnudinov could become in Minnesota, but he offers enough effort to maximize his skill set. Boone Jenner is another comparison. The Columbus Blue Jackets drafted him 37th overall in 2011, and he became their top shutdown center. Can Khusnutdinov be a high-end version of Jenner? Khusnutdinov won't be as physically dominant, but he won't shy away from helping his team win games in every way. His defensive game is so strong that you can expect his offensive game to shine. He's intelligent, and he skates like he belongs. He's the kind of center Kaprizov needs down the middle. The Wild currently are rolling with Matt Boldy, Eriksson Ek, and Kaprizov as the top line, but Khusnutdinov has game-breaking speed that Eriksson Ek and Marco Rossi don’t have. Nothing against what they bring offensively, but the team’s best offensive players need a center who can create similar skating chaos like Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid. Not only shut down lines but also produced offensively as the third string of offense with Kaprizov and Boldy. Top line made. However, that doesn’t mean that Eriksson Ek and Rossi can’t play in the top-six. You can convince Danila Yurov and Vladislav Firstov to come over, but they won’t impact the Wild this year. Khusnutdinov needs to play in all situations to improve the Wild’s consistency. This will also help bring out the best in him. Khusnutdinov and Eriksson Ek can become one of the best penalty-killing duos in the NHL or have their separate unit. Aggressive forechecking to cause turnovers and capitalize on scoring chances by crashing the net. Khusnutdinov can bring life to the Wild’s powerplay by causing more pressure. The Wild will allow Khusnutdinov to transition into the league slowly, but he’s built to be a successful leader.

Alright, I admit it, I can be a bandwagon fan for the Wild. However, in my defense, you need to protect yourself from letdowns when you’ve been a Minnesota hockey market fan for as long as I’ve been. I remember watching North Star games with my dad in our musty basement. Having him time me with how fast I could run upstairs and get him another Grain Belt and bring it back down to him. I believe 4 seconds is my record. When Casio digital watches were the thing, my record creeped up to 4.3 seconds. Damn you, technology. I saw Bobby Smith’s ridiculous goal against the Calgary Flames where he took an offensive zone draw, won it to himself, and deked through the bewildered Flames defense to score the goal. I watched every single televised Team USA game in 1980 and was excited to see who would join the Stars the following year. I watched every game of the 1981 playoff season, only to be disappointed with the 5-game series loss against the New York Islanders. I listened in horror in 1992 to KQ when it was announced that they were moving to…Dallas?? Where am I going with all of this? As I watch this season, I can only come to one conclusion: just tank, baby. We all know that this team will not, I repeat, will not win the Cup this year. With the cap hit against us for next year, in 2024-25, too. I don’t know why ownership and leadership have to sell us this notion of “competitive rebuild” when we can all see that we do not have the pieces to win it all. At least not now. Will we? I believe so. With players like Kirill Kaprizov, Brock Faber, Matt Boldy, Jesper Wallstedt, and Marco Rossi here. And Danila Yurov, Marat Khusnutdinov, Carson Lambos, and Liam Öhgren on the horizon, why not add a couple more top-10 prospects? I believe that GM Bill Guerin knows what it takes to build a team. He’s been in locker rooms to know pretenders from the real thing. All the haters out there are just projecting their frustration with how things have been going since the buyouts. From what I’ve heard, good riddance. I also believe that part of the fanbase’s frustration is because of the history of letdowns this market has had to go through. And also the fact that this fanbase, arguably the most knowledgeable fanbase in the league, is aware of the BS they are trying to tell us. “Competitive rebuild,” come on, Wild. This market attends squirt, mite, high school, and college games just to root for their kids. We play in adult leagues because we love the game. We’ll still come out and watch as you go through the last half of this season and the next just to see the new kids play. We’ll want to show them that we are and always will be, the best hockey market in the league. We enjoy watching our kids get better year after year. The same is true for our newest talent that you draft and develop. That includes talent on other teams. This team has a lot going for it: great venue, great metro area, great fans. Just tank. Be sellers at the trade deadline. Send Marc-Andre Fleury to Pittsburg or New Jersey. Get what you can for him. Frankly, it’s been awesome having him here and getting to No. 2 on the all-time wins list. See what you can get for any of those guys not named Faber, Boldy, Wallstedt, Rossi, and Kaprisov, and bring up the kids to play the rest of the season. Give them the experience they need to play at the NHL level and let’s watch them grow. Having a couple of top 10 talent wouldn’t hurt either, would it? And so, as I sit here watching another Wild game with my granddaughter, a blooming hockey fan, I wonder how much longer I will have to wait to celebrate a Stanley Cup championship. I would certainly like for her to enjoy a franchise that is somewhat consistent every year so that she can become that hardcore fan who can enjoy every high and loathe every low. “Hey, sweetie, can I ask a favor?” I ask. “Sure, Papa!” she replies excitedly. “Would you go get me a bottle of Sprite from the fridge, please?” I inquire. “Will you time me?” she grins wryly. Leaning forward on my chair, I yell, “GO!” while pressing the start button on the stopwatch. Running upstairs with a huge grin, I hear the thumping of feet on the steps, the door of the fridge opening, the noise of what can only be described as an elephant charge across the ceiling, and back down the stairs arrives my granddaughter. A bottle of Sprite in her hand stretched out to me. “Time!?” she shouts. As I press the button on my Dad’s old Casio watch, the screen reads “4.2”. Cheering ensues.

The story goes that when Spanish Conquistador and genocidal maniac Hernan Cortez landed in modern-day Mexico in 1519, he ordered his fleet of ships burned. Was it a practical decision? No. It was about sending a message. His forces would destroy the Aztec Empire or be destroyed in turn. There would be no retreat. That is admittedly kind of a ridiculous anecdote to lead into talking about a general manager trying to keep his hockey team competitive despite a $15 million salary cap disadvantage. For one, if Bill Guerin succeeds in getting the Minnesota Wild to be a playoff team, it won't be a net negative to humanity. But when embarking on this season, Guerin burned his boats to ensure the only way was forward. In September, Guerin signed Mats Zuccarello, Marcus Foligno, and Ryan Hartman to extensions. Each player was an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season but expressed their desire to remain with the Wild long-term. Guerin obliged. He kept the trio around for two, four, and three more years, respectively, armed with no-trade and no-move clauses. The upside of these deals was that if the Wild stayed competitive this season, they could maintain the continuity and momentum into the next several seasons. Perhaps not having the looming cloud of uncertainty would enable them to play their best. Of course, the downside is that if things go wrong, then Guerin burned his boats. If the Wild were, say, five points out of a playoff spot on January 11, entering trade deadline season with veterans like Zuccarello, Foligno, and Hartman would be a great way to salvage the season. These players were all on team-friendly deals. In Foligno and Hartman's case, they are arguably way cheaper than the value they provide. Teams want those kinds of players, and Guerin could have gotten a haul for them. But no. There would be no retreating. The Wild limited their options to winning or disaster. It's becoming clear which path the Wild are going down. It is January 11, and the Wild are five points out of a playoff spot. After 40 games, the Wild are tied with the Buffalo Sabres in the standings, jockeying for the sixth-best draft lottery odds in the league. And that's after Guerin played the coaching change card. Sure, injuries ravaged the team in a way that would be hard to predict. Jared Spurgeon has only played in 16 games. Jonas Brodin has been out for 15 games and counting. And now Kirill Kaprizov has missed six games, in which the Wild have only scored 10 goals. Is that bad luck that Guerin couldn't necessarily count on? Yeah, that's safe to say. The problem is that the Wild would always have to operate on thin margins, even at their best. Their salary cap woes have escalated to $15 million in buyout penalties. The strain would always show, even if the Wild overcame it. Minnesota's vaunted depth of the past two years is gone. For one reason or another, important players like Kevin Fiala, Matt Dumba, Jordan Greenway, Nico Sturm, Mason Shaw, Calen Addison, and more are gone. That was always going to be the case entering this year. The Wild were able to sustain key injuries before. Now, one or two sends the whole thing crashing down. Guerin needed to hedge against that possibility, even a little bit, and he did not. And for what? Minnesota didn't want the team to be uncompetitive or unable to ease their players into the NHL. Mission not accomplished. The Wild have lost six of their last seven games, looking uncompetitive in almost all of them. While Marco Rossi and Brock Faber are thriving with responsibility, we're seeing the team have to rush rookies like Daemon Hunt and, most recently, Jesper Wallstedt into NHL action before they are ready. By burning his boats. Guerin threatens to have a compounding cost on the team's future. Not only did he forfeit any assets that could have come back the team's way -- assets they could have used to acquire players when the salary cap hell is over -- he did it to keep depreciating assets around. Zuccarello, Foligno, and Hartman will all be 30 and over next year. In two years, will Guerin wish he had a boatload of assets he could use to acquire the next young star player to hit the trade market or a collection of vets in their mid-to-late 30s? The Wild can still get a bright light at the end of this disaster year's tunnel, of course. If they land a Macklin Celebrini or Cole Eiserman in the draft, will that somewhat offset the opportunity cost those extensions created? Definitely. But they also could have had both, and shipping out those three contracts for assets would also help their chances of celebrating Celebrini in the organization. It's not a failure if the Wild can't drag a $15 million anchor over the finish line and end up in the league's basement. It's a hard task that would be difficult for any GM to overcome. It is a failure not to secure the flexibility to pivot to a Plan B if things go wrong. In that sense, Guerin hasn't just failed. He specifically engineered a situation where he would be guaranteed to do so if things went sideways. If you burn your boats and accomplish your goals, it seems justified in retrospect. But what happens if you don't? We're seeing it now, and in Guerin's case, it's looking more and more like an unforced error that threatens to hamper his team's long-term ambitions to compete for the Stanley Cup.

In 2017, the NHL partnered with the You Can Play Project, a group dedicated to combating homophobia in sports, to create the "Hockey Is For Everyone" campaign. "Our clubs, our players, and our fans are committed to welcoming everyone to hockey," said Gary Bettman, announcing the initiative. The move, though not without its embarrassments, was a small but necessary step to building a more inclusive fanbase. It's a small and easy way to bring in more LGBTQIA+ fans. Certainly, not from the kindness of the NHL's hearts. Pride Nights sell tickets, and Pride merchandise moves units (even if that merch ends up being less progressive than it intends), thereby increasing the bottom line. Unless scooping up those extra dollars generates a public relations nightmare for your league, that is. After seven players publicly went on record as not wishing to wear Pride-themed jerseys in warmups (with several more teams canceling planned Pride displays, presumably to avoid the same) the NHL and NHLPA came together and said: Okay, no more Pride for the players. In addition to removing the recent standard of practice of having players wear Pride-themed jerseys during warm-ups, the NHL is going so far as to ban players from individually supporting the LGBTQIA+ community by wearing Pride tape on their sticks. In warm-ups. On Pride Nights. Asked by Daily Faceoff's Matt Larkin why there was such a wide-spanning ban on players showing support, Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly explained, "We just don't want to put other players in a tough spot simply because they don't choose to join." There are, of course, many inherent contradictions and hypocrisies that are embedded in this controversy. One would be citing Christian beliefs as a reason to not participate in an innocuous acknowledgment of the humanity of the LGBTQIA+ community, despite one of its two main tenents calls for people to "love thy neighbor as thyself." So is the NHL's unwillingness to have players feel compelled to make a "political" statement in supporting LGBTQIA+ fans, yet have them participate in the inherently political national anthem ceremonies pre-game. But one of the biggest contradictions is the league promoting the idea that Hockey Is For Everyone, then backtracking in a way that says "Hockey Isn't For Everyone," as Outsports' Cyd Ziegler detailed this week, and Akim Aliu wrote in 2020. These are valid and good hypocrisies to point out, but there's a bigger contradiction at the heart of "Hockey Is For Everyone." Namely, the fact that it can't be for everyone. It's understandable why the league would use "Everyone" in their diversity campaign. It's as inclusive as possible, and that might be the best way to communicate that. Others can debate or decide that. But taken literally, it implies that hockey is a big tent where every fan can co-exist in harmony. It's a nice thought, and it'd be great if it were true. As it stands, though, it isn't. This is all happening with the dropback of decreased tolerance for LGBTQIA+, and specifically transgender, non-binary, and genderqueer people, in the United States. Florida's state government is one of the more infamous drivers of this, having passed a sweeping "Don't Say Gay" bill earlier this year, but they're hardly alone. In 2023, 23 states have passed legislation targeting transgender people, making existing in public life difficult. Those are just the ones that passed. This legislation coincides with an increase in violence against the LGBTQIA+ community, leading the Human Rights Campaign to declare a National State of Emergency. Famously, the threat of violence against employees led Target to pull their Pride merchandise from stores this summer. Again, all this serves to eliminate LGBTQIA+ people from public spaces. That's why hockey can not be for Everyone. The tent can not contain the LGBTQIA+ community and the fans who would rather that community not exist. Perhaps the NHL and its lawyers believe they've found a neutral way to sidestep a culture war issue that proved to be a PR thorn in their side last year. The alienation its Queer fanbase and their allies are feeling and the online celebration of bigots within the fanbase betray the fact that they can't. It's impossible. Whether they want to admit it or not, the NHL decided Hockey can not be for Everyone. More pointedly, they implicitly decided who, exactly, it was for and who, exactly, they would protect: the bigots on their benches, in their stands, and watching their game on TV from a moment of discomfort.

Hockey Wilderness is counting down the Minnesota Wild's Top-10 Prospects, as voted by our staff. Today, we give you everything you need to know about our No. 6 prospect, Liam Öhgren. In a league gravitating increasingly more towards speed and skill, the Minnesota Wild are a bit of a throwback. They're built in the image of their general manager Bill Guerin and head coach Dean Evason. Both were hard-nosed, physical players, which is an element they've embraced for their current squad. "We're just not a pretty team," Guerin told The Athletic at the start of last season. "We have some skill -- maybe not as much as some other teams -- so when we don't play hard, heavy, physical... we struggle." It's hard to imagine the 2025-26 version of the Wild sharing that same identity. Minnesota's prospect pool is appearing to catch up with the rest of the league in terms of skill. Sure, Matt Boldy, Riley Heidt, Marat Khusnutdinov, Marco Rossi, and Danila Yurov might have some jam and two-way ability between them. That's not the point of any of their games, though. They create scoring chances through their various strengths, with all of them sharing an ability to handle the puck in electric ways. Of these top prospects and youngsters, Hockey Wilderness isn't looking for many of them to become a Marcus Foligno-type of player. Even Boldy, who you could call a power forward, is more Mark Stone than he is Foligno. Boldy uses his size to seize puck possession and get to dirty areas of the ice, and less to be physical. If anyone in this top group of forwards can take up the mantle of the Guerin Wild Identity, it might be Sweden's Liam Öhgren. Even so, we figure to see an evolution in what the future of Minnesota's power forwards look like. Foligno is a bowling ball, able to blow up players with abandon and throw fists with the league's heavyweights. In that way, he plays more like Evason, who could score a bit in his day but whose role was a physical presence. Öhgren's upside feels more similar to Guerin: a player who will be active in the forecheck, but is going to be more known for his offensive contributions. Or, according to The Athletic's Joe Smith, the player Öhgren models his game after: Gabriel Landeskog. Before suffering a career-threatening injury that held him out of last season and will take him out of next, Landeskog was a premier offensive player in the NHL. The rugged Swede scored 34 goals and 77 points per 82 games in the five years before his injury. But Wild fans don't see him as that lethal offensive threat. To the State of Hockey, Landeskog is the Colorado Avalanche's sunovabitch. Unlike a Foligno-type, Landeskog being a sunovabitch isn't about hitting. At least, not since the earliest years of his career. Colorado's captain is always in the mix, strong enough to go to the net with Zach Parise-like regularity, and fast enough to hustle for turnovers and send them the other way for scoring chances. Simply put, Landeskog is easy to hate. That's not an insult; it's a compliment the same way it is to say that Joel Eriksson Ek pisses off opponents. Of all the Wild's prospects, Öhgren may have the best potential for being the next sunovabitch in St. Paul. Judd Brackett loves his pair of 2022 first-rounders, which include Öhgren (19th overall) and Yurov (24th), and not just for their skill. "You see [them] against men, [they] physically engage and play in the dirty areas," he told Smith. "[They're] hard to play against." Speaking of Öhgren specifically, he marvels, "On the forecheck, he's so tenacious." Injuries took away from some of his numbers last year in Allsvenskan, but he turned it back on with a fantastic playoff run. Öhgren scored eight goals and added another five assists in 17 games as he dragged Djurgärdens back to the Swedish Hockey League. They didn't make it, but Öhgren will get a chance to prove his mettle there next year with Färjestad, the club that developed Eriksson Ek and Jonas Brodin. That dip in numbers, the power forward element to his game, and the wealth of offensive talent Minnesota's system probably lead to the fanbase underrating his raw skills. Öhgren has got a shot at proving that he belongs in the same conversation as the rest of the Wild's top forward prospects next year. Öhgren might only have above-average speed, but there's a difference between being fast and playing fast. "Everything happens in motions for Öhgren," Elite Prospects said of him in their 2022 Draft Guide. "He plays at such a heightened pace that the puck often flies from his stick no sooner than you realize he's even secured possession in the first place." Not only can he play fast, but he also knows when to slow things down to create opportunities. Per McKeen's Hockey's draft profile on him: "His skating is very nifty in its entirety... gaining a new gear quickly while winning races to pucks and moving around defenders. [It often buys] him the often critical second or two he needs to be successful in his shot attempts." The feet are great to begin with, but that weapon becomes so much more potent when it's combined with what he can do with his hands. NHL Central Scouting compares his playstyle to Auston Matthews, which is such a lofty comp that it feels borderline irresponsible. Why throw that name out there? Most likely, it's because Öhgren's shot has some of the same combination of power and craftiness that Matthews employs to score 40 goals in his sleep. "Öhgren can quickly change angles and manipulate his shot angle in order to release quick pucks," wrote FC Hockey in their 2022 Draft Guide. That's an important quality to have, as goalies are too good to get beat straight-up very often. Shooters who can hide their intentions are going to have the most success. The lead-up to the draft is when these prospects are hyped up the most. But a year later, even after a tougher season for Öhgren, that assessment of his shot still holds up. Scott Wheeler ranked Öhgren the NHL's 40th-best prospect (and the Wild's second-best skater) in July. Wheeler says of Öhgren's shot, "it really rattles off of his stick." He's not just a one-trick pony, either. Wheeler compliments his complete package on offense, specifically calling out his "really sneaky craftiness and evasiveness" and "his combination [of] shot-and-pass, power-and-finesse." Power forwards whose skills can match most any 5-foot-10 player in a team's top-six are absolute unicorns. That's when you start talking about the Stones, the Boldys, and Matthew Tkachuk-type players in the league. And if Öhgren joins Boldy in those ranks at the NHL-level, the Wild's future and evolution of their power identity will indeed be fun to watch.

Special teams are incredibly important in crunch-time games, and the Minnesota Wild's power play had been struggling to cash in on their few chances in the last week or so. In their last four games, Minnesota went 0-for-9 with the man advantage, including two losses to big-time teams. Normally, a team like the Wild can ride out a four-game slump. However, needing to get a win against a top Washington Capitals team, John Hynes needed to do something drastic to shake things up. On Wednesday, the usually-conservative Hynes went bold, icing a five-forward power play unit. Some of the best, most talented teams have tried this tactic -- the Toronto Maple Leafs and Florida Panthers come to mind as the pioneers -- but the Wild have been slow to the party. Under Bruce Boudreau, they were among the last teams to fully embrace having four forwards on the power play. Dean Evason always felt confident enough in Jared Spurgeon to have him as a defensive safety blanket. As for Hynes, Spurgeon, Brock Faber, and Declan Chisholm have all had 50-plus power play minutes. You can understand a fully-healthy Wild getting tempted into a five-forward unit. Having Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek, Mats Zuccarello, Matt Boldy, and Marco Rossi all on the ice? No one would bat an eye at that. But Hynes pulled that lever with Kaprizov and Eriksson Ek on the shelf, putting in Freddy Gaudreau and Marcus Johansson on the top unit. That raised eyebrows, or it would have, if it hadn't worked. 23 seconds into Minnesota's second (and final) power play chance, Gaudreau tipped Boldy's point shot to send the puck past Charlie Lindgren to tie the game. It was a necessary step to secure a crucial two points by knocking off the President's Trophy-leading Capitals. Gaudreau even iced the game by notching an empty-net goal. When Gaudreau first got to the Wild, he was plucked out of obscurity by Evason, whose long relationship with the player came from their days with the AHL's Milwaukee Admirals. Evason staked some of his reputation on Gaudreau, telling Michael Russo in August 2021, "I can attest to him... being a real, real good player, but a real good teammate as well." After a 44-point season, Evason got to take a victory lap. "I think my feelings personally on Freddy are well-known by now and I think it's an organizational feeling as well," the coach declared the following September. "You could play Freddy anywhere." But when Evason got fired amidst a slow start from many Wild players -- including Gaudreau -- it put Gaudreau into somewhat uncharted territory. Gaudreau was a late-bloomer, making the NHL full-time at 28, under a coach who had a unique relationship with him. How would it work under Hynes, who had no connection to Gaudreau at all? As Gaudreau's struggles compounded, it didn't work. During the 2022-23 season under Evason, Gaudreau averaged 16 minutes and three seconds per night for Minnesota. During Gaudreau's final 37 games in his first season under Hynes, that average time on ice fell to 13:24. Early this season, Hynes put Gaudreau on fourth-line duty, with him averaging just under 14 minutes a night in October, a month in which he went scoreless until the final game. His struggles under Hynes led to widespread speculation that the Wild might seek to give him a fresh start under the coach who had 1000% faith in him. However, no such move materialized, and Hynes, Minnesota's front office, and the fans all should be happy about that right now. It’s the State of Freddy Hockey now. Goals have been tough to come by in St. Paul this March, and Gaudreau's been one of the only reliable sources of them. His six scores in March leads the team, and his eight points are behind only Matt Boldy, tying him for second on the Wild. On a squad that's struggling to keep up trying to elevate the team in the wake of an absurd string of injuries, Gaudreau is one of the few players seeming to gain strength as the season wears on. And whether Gaudreau sees it this way, he's proving that he's no one-coach wonder. Hynes is leaning on Gaudreau like he never has before and is finding why Evason had such trust in the player. Since the start of February, Gaudreau is averaging 17:16 per night -- more ice time than Gaudreau's peak season (16:16) under Evason. During that span, Gaudreau is fifth among Wild forwards in 5-on-5 time, fifth in power play time, and by far their top penalty-killing forward. When defending a one-score lead with a 5-on-6 against the best goal-scorer of all time, Hynes had Freddy Hockey out there to stop Alex Ovechkin from tying the game. As Evason said, Hynes is finding he can play Gaudreau anywhere. Of course, some of this increase in playing time is out of necessity. During February and March, Ryan Hartman missed time due to suspension and Eriksson Ek has been out for over a month. If Gaudreau was simply eating minutes, maybe that's not a perfect indication of trust. But Gaudreau is stepping up, and as the five-forward power play showed, Hynes is looking for ways to get him into the game. It's working, and Gaudreau is suddenly in sight of setting a career-high in goals. He scored 19 two seasons ago, which means he needs just two in his final nine games to not just hit a career-best, but crack the 20-goal mark for the first time. More importantly, the perpetual underdog is helping an underdog Wild team claw out points as they grow closer to clinching a playoff spot. Last night saw him help Minnesota pick up a huge regulation win against Washington. Earlier this month, he notched two points in a 4-3 win against the Seattle Kraken. He scored the only tally in a 1-0 shutout of the Boston Bruins. Combine those big-moment scores with his always-solid two-way game, and Gaudreau is showing he's a player capable of earning the trust of any coach.

“It is going to be alright. It’s all good!” “This team is so awful. I’m angry!” “Listen, this is exactly what you’d expect to happen, so really, it is what it is. Just go with the flow, bro.” Odds are that when you think of the Minnesota Wild right now, a phrase that sounds like one of the three above starts running through your head. Whichever one it is, it’s also likely the same phrase that runs through your head most of the time. Sports fans tend to fall into one of three categories. Scroll through the comment section on any sports website. You’re likely to see each one of them battling for the souls of the other two in an increasingly escalating debate that eventually dissolves into a bunch of fiery declarations about who lives in their parents’ basement and who just needs to open their eyes and “actually watch the games.” And let’s be honest, we’re lucky if it stops there. But we here at Hockey Wilderness are a civilized bunch intent on delivering wholesome content to our loyal and knowledgeable readers. So, instead of rehashing the same conversations you’re likely to find in the comment sections on lesser sites, what you’ll see here today is what happens when three highly rational, completely objective hockey fans engage in a spirited discussion about how the Wild will fare in this year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs. In one corner, you have Optimist Brian. In the other, Peter the Pessimist. And up there, perched from the rafters and taking in the big picture, is Rational Randy. ---------------------------------------- The prompt: The Minnesota Wild will find playoff success this postseason and win at least one round. Optimist Brian: They can definitely do it! If you don’t count the past two months, the Wild are basically one of the best teams in the league. No reason they can’t ramp it back up in April with all their big guns. Peter the Pessimist: Listen, good hockey is like jazz music – I know it when I see it, and with this bunch, I haven’t seen it in a while. Plus, I mean, if we’re not counting the past two months, I’ve only gained four pounds since Christmas. So why don’t my pants fit then? Rational Randy: The way I see it, you can’t win or move comfortably in your pants if you’re not healthy, so of course, the Wild have been struggling lately. I believe that answers Peter’s question as well. Let’s see what happens if everyone gets healthy and the Wild can give opponents a healthy diet of Kirill and Co. every night. Time will tell, fellas. Optimist Brian: That’s exactly what I’m saying! We all know that when the Wild put the pedal to the medal and play their game, they get rewarded for their efforts. In general manager Bill Guerin, we trust! This is the guy who finally got Kaprizov to come over and who led the team to the best regular season in franchise history. Peter the Pessimist: Listen Brian, would I trust Bill Guerin to spin a good yarn and pick up the tab at the bar? Absolutely. Do I trust him with my hockey team? Sorry, but that ship flew the coop when he handled the team like he has this year. And really, even before that, things started getting weird. Rational Randy: Well, the way I see it, going into the season, the Wild weren’t expected to be as good as they have been so far, so we have to keep that in mind. Have they been as good as we would have hoped? No. But they haven’t been awful either. Time will tell what happens. We just gotta let the universe unfold as it will, bros. Optimist Brian: Well, listen, the universe unfolds according to the will of the hockey gods, and this year, they have to be on our side! I mean, the Wild put on their hard hats every game and go to work, and they’re bound to get rewarded with some puck luck at some point. Why wouldn’t this be the year they finally do? It’s the final year of Flower Power, after all. The gods be with us, I say. Peter the Pessimist: What in the name of Manny Fernandez are you two blabbering on about? The universe and hockey gods don’t win you hockey games! It’s Xs and Os, execution, being a well-oiled machine, and star power. And right now, the Wild are headed down the home stretch looking like the rickety sled in Cool Runnings, and the team’s stars are being held together with duct tape. Rational Randy: You know, Peter, some people have used duct tape to do some really great things. I had a wallet made out of it for all of middle school. The Wild’s chances have definitely gotten worse with all the injuries they’ve had, but all you really need is a chip and a chair, and then once the cards are dealt, it’s all up to fate. Time will tell. Let’s just sit back and enjoy the ride, dudes. Optimist Brian: You’re damn right I’m gonna enjoy the ride! How many teams do you know that could survive this many injuries to key players and still be pretty much a lock to make the playoffs? You know why? It’s because they have the intangibles and put the pieces in place to succeed. Their goalie tandem features an emerging star and a sure-fire hall of famer. They have a great mix of young talent and steady vets who all know their roles. Look at Marcus Johansson. He’s practically the Greek god of off-puck neutral zone positioning. That’s the stuff you need to win! Peter the Pessimist: Oookay. Let’s unpack this for a second, Brian. Your rationale for the team making a playoff run is that the Wild played well to start the season, they have a backup goaltender who they’ve barely played in the last month, and because they have Marcus freaking Johansson? What in the name of Justin Fontaine are you smoking? Randy, come on, this guy’s nuts, right? Rational Randy: Well, I can see both of your points, really. There’s a lot to be said for having a veteran presence in the room, and Fleury is known to have been a valuable mentor to young goalies in the playoffs. And Johansson does bring some defensive value, but Greek god is a little over the top. So yeah Peter, Brian’s probably smoking something. But that’s just his journey, man, just like the Wild are on theirs. Time will tell what happens, compadres. Optimist Brian: The Wild won this week! They are the best! Peter the Pessimist: The Wild lost this week. They suck. Rational Randy: You win some, you lose some, bros. Optimist Brian: Let’s go Wild! Let’s go WILD! Peter the Pessimist: Uhh yeah…I’m gonna go. Randy, can we be done here? Rational Randy: Sure thing, fellas. Rational Randy abides.

Based on what we've seen so far, there's only one way that Liam Öhgren is helping the Minnesota Wild get to the playoffs this year. As trade bait. I don't say that disrespectfully or because there's any shame in not being ready for an NHL playoff run as a 21-year-old rookie. Öhgren can create his own shot at the AHL level but can't quite do it against bigger, stronger NHLers. That's not good or bad. It just is. Unless you're trying to get the Wild to the playoffs without Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek. Once Eriksson Ek went on the IR, Minnesota had gone 0-3-0 before being forced to make a move, trading for Gustav Nyquist. It wasn't inspiring, perhaps, but when your team scores two or fewer goals in seven of their past nine games... you gotta do something. To make the Nyquist trade, they had to send Öhgren and fellow rookie forward Marat Khusnutdinov to the Iowa Wild for salary cap reasons. Those ripples showcase Minnesota's issues as a potential buyer: They have little flexibility, few moveable pieces, and almost no draft capital. The Wild will enter the 2025 Draft with only their second and sixth-round picks and a fourth-rounder they picked up from the Toronto Maple Leafs for facilitating a Ryan O'Reilly trade two deadlines ago. They've already moved their 2026 second-rounder to acquire Nyquist. So, what's left? A lot, actually. Minnesota has the second-best prospect pool in the NHL, according to The Athletic's Scott Wheeler. They have cornerstone pieces in Zeev Buium, (and, they hope) David Jiricek, Danila Yurov, and Jesper Wallstedt. Beyond those headliners, the Wild also have intriguing forward depth in Riley Heidt, Hunter Haight, and Charlie Stramel. Öhgren is sort of stuck in between those tiers. Few consider him a potential impact player, but he's close to NHL-ready and a cut above the Heidt/Haight/Stramel crowd. So it makes sense that, when asking Who's expendable?, Öhgren's name would come up. In fact, it did in The Athletic's round-up of players most likely to get dealt. Now, you've gotta give to get. Still, the Wild should go out of their way to keep Öhgren at the deadline, even if it means risking falling out of the playoffs. Why keep him over someone like Heidt, Haight, or even their 2026 first-rounder? It's a long-term fit issue. Many of Minnesota's forwards fit a similar prototype: Smart players who must rely on their offensive skill to make an impact in the NHL. Heidt, Haight, and Ryder Ritchie may play hard, but they don't have the potential to be, say, an elite forechecker like Eriksson Ek. Someone like Stramel might, but despite his strides at Michigan State, whether he makes it to the NHL is still an open question. As I said earlier, that's not good or bad. It just is. Öhgren is simply different from the pack. His 6-foot-0, 187-pound frame isn't imposing, but his playstyle should be once he settles into the NHL. Öhgren's game profiles similar to Eriksson Ek's. He has the skill to be on the power play but is effective on the forecheck. If the Wild want the kind of third-line scoring threat they had a few years ago with Eriksson Ek, Marcus Foligno, and Jordan Greenway, Öhgren is their most likely prospect to fill that role. That's probably not going to be the case with the smaller Heidt or Haight. Ritchie is 6-foot-1, so maybe he will become that player. Still, at least at the draft, he looks like someone whose ID you'd check before selling him lemonade. Obsessing over height and weight charts is a good way to make mistakes in player evaluation, but here's the thing: Someone has to fill the physical role on a team. It's not about fighting or blasting guys with hard hits. Instead, it's about having players who can forecheck and withstand physical pressure, which is essential. Öhgren is their top prospect who cleanly fits that bill. And if they don't develop someone like Öhgren, they'll try to find that player elsewhere. All you have to do is look at the last two summers to see that. Marcus Foligno got a four-year deal that's working out great now but carries the potential to fall off hard toward the end. Ryan Hartman signed a three-year extension and his value has plummeted to the point where he's getting called "just a knucklehead" by NHL executives. Yakov Trenin came in as a free agent and is on pace for eight goals in the first year of a four-year pact that pays him $3.5 million annually. It's hard to say that Öhgren is more important than the Big 4 of Buium, Jiricek, Wallstedt, and Yurov, but arguably, he's just as important, even if Öhgren doesn't quite stack up to them talent-wise. Great teams have great players at the top, of course, but teams also need strong role players to make a deep run. There's a place in Minnesota for someone with, say, Nino Niederreiter-type potential, which is something Öhgren can provide that few others in the system offer. You can't say, The fifth-best prospect in our system is completely untouchable, but the Wild would be wise to find any way they can to keep Öhgren in-house.

Playing hockey was all in the family. It’s a tale not uncommon in athletic circles. Claire Thompson grew up lacing up skates and picking up a hockey stick in Toronto. She followed the lead of her dad, Ian, and older sister, Jennifer, who each played hockey growing up. The girls started skating at a young age. It was just the thing to do, Claire said. “Just go out to the outdoor rinks and learn to skate as a family,” Thompson said. “And then my older sister started playing organized hockey, and I wanted to do everything just like she did. That’s how I kind of got started playing hockey.” That start blossomed into a successful hockey career. Thompson, 27, is flourishing in her rookie season as a Minnesota Frost defenseman. The third overall pick in the 2024 PWHL Draft has 14 points in 16 games and is one of the top scorers in the league. She played high school hockey for Martingrove Collegiate Institute and two seasons for the Toronto Junior Aeros, which won the Provincial Women’s Hockey League (also PWHL) and Provincial Championship in 2015-16. Looking at Thompson’s production from the blue line, it’s easy to refer to her as an offensive defenseman. She leads the Frost with 11 assists and is tied with forward Taylor Heise for second in points with 14. There’s a good reason for that: She started as a center and didn’t switch to defense until later in high school. She was a defensive, play-making center, and her dad wanted to see if she could switch to playing on the blue line. “My dad just thought that my skillset would translate into being a skilled, efficient defenseman,” Thompson said. “He brought it up to me to see if it was something that I was interested in considering, and I said that I was.” They talked to her coach, and by the next season, she fully switched over to defense. She said they didn’t know exactly how it would turn out or if it would be a good decision. “It’s obviously panned out pretty well,” said Thompson, adding that she has no regrets about the position swap. But hockey isn’t Thompson’s only passion. She wanted to become a doctor ever since she could remember. Thompson always liked math and science. She also had another family tie; her grandfather was a doctor. He died when she was young, and “I think that was always kind of in the back of my mind.” That career aspiration – of becoming a doctor – was realistic and attainable while Thompson was growing up. Playing professional hockey was not. She always saw hockey as a way to help her get admitted into the best university she could “because, unfortunately, at that time there wasn’t a big pro women’s league to aspire to be a part of, despite there being the Olympics and that always being a dream.” Hockey on the collegiate, international stage Thompson played hockey at Princeton from 2016 to 2020 and was a captain her senior season. She scored 31 goals and 87 points in 128 career games while being named a four-time ECAC All-Academic selection, three-time AHCA All-American Scholar, and two-time Academic All-Ivy honoree. As a junior, she finished third on her team in scoring and led defensemen with nine goals and 28 points. While the Olympics was ultimately her dream, Thompson didn’t make the Canadian national team until her senior year. So, from her high years and most of college, she didn’t think professional ice hockey was a viable career option. She hadn’t made the national team until then, and there wasn’t another hockey league worth putting her medical school dreams on hold. She graduated from college with her undergraduate degree in 2020. After making the national team, she took two years off of academics to chase her Olympic dream for the 2022 Games, where she won a gold medal with Canada in Beijing. In the process, she broke the Olympic record for the most points scored by a defenseman in a single tournament with 13 points (two goals, 11 assists) in seven games. Thompson also won International Ice Hockey Federation World Championship gold in 2021 and silver in 2023 with Team Canada. Following the 2022 Olympic cycle, Thompson started her medical school journey in August 2022 for the fall semester at NYU. She wants to pursue orthopedic surgery. The summer following her first year of med school, the PWHL presented an opportunity. However, Thompson was already committed to another year of school. When the puck dropped on the PWHL inaugural season in January 2024, Thompson took a year off from competitive hockey and was busy studying and working toward her medical degree. “I had never really planned to take a whole year off hockey,” Thompson said. “The year prior to that, I had played in the PWHPA and with the national team and was able to do both with school. And then the league (PWHL) kind of came together late last summer, early in the fall.” With everything so new, it wasn’t clear how she could pursue hockey and education simultaneously as she’d done previously. But once she found out the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, weighing the hockey requirements versus her med school requirements, she focused on school but also how she could continue to play hockey. Drafted by the champs When Minnesota celebrated its Walter Cup Championship, Thompson had completed two years of school and entered the 2024 PWHL Draft. Thompson, like other players, was not at Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul, attending the PWHL Draft on June 10, 2024. Instead, she watched the proceedings from her med school apartment. She and her roommates and friends had a draft party. There were a few Minnesotans in the room who were excited when Thompson’s name was called in the first round by the defending PWHL champion. That night, she told the media via virtual video press conference that entering the draft was a “really difficult decision” because she loves med school. Still, her “sights have been set on continuing to play professional hockey during this period of my life.” Thompson expressed her excitement at being drafted to Minnesota that night. “I’m just so excited to be a part of such a successful team coming off the most recent championship,” she said on draft night. “I couldn’t think of a better place to start my professional ice hockey career. “They always say ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ So not being able to play this year has really reinvigorated my love for hockey.”

The Minnesota Wild have employed more than their fair share of players from Finland, the European hockey hotbed. Some are among the most impactful players in the organization’s history. The club’s affinity for Finns eventually earned it a new nickname. The Finnesota Wild. Heck, there even used to be a Finnish hockey podcast with the same name. While the team hasn’t had a Finn suit-up since Kaapo Kahkonen played 25 games in the 2021-22 season, that has a chance to change in the coming years. Over the past two drafts, the Wild have selected three Finnish players, all of whom the organization hopes to develop into NHL players. In 2023, they selected Rasmus Kumpulainen; in 2024, they selected Aron Kiviharju and Sebastian Soini. All three prospects participated for Team Finland in the 2025 World Junior Championship in December and January. The Finns showed well in the tournament, making it to overtime of the gold medal game, where they eventually fell to Team USA. For Kumpalainen, it was his second time playing for Finland in the World Juniors, while Kiviharju and Soini participated for the first time. I watched all seven of Finland’s games in the tournament and paid particular attention to the trio of Wild prospects to get a sense of who they are as players and, more importantly, what they might become. My biggest takeaway was that of the three, Aron Kiviharju has the best chance to become an impact player. Aron Kiviharju - Defense Shoots: Left - 5-foot-10, 181 lbs. Current Team: HIFK (Liiga) Acquired: 2024 NHL Draft, 4th round (No. 122 overall) Kiviharju endeared himself to Wild fans on draft day last summer when he told Bill Guerin that he had just made the steal of the draft when the Wild selected him in the fourth round. After missing most of his draft season due to a dislocated kneecap, the once highly-touted Finn had slipped down draft lists and was none too pleased. He’s rebounded nicely with a solid post-draft year thus far, playing in Finland’s top professional league and earning a spot on the Finnish World Junior squad. At that tournament, Kivharju was named captain of a team full of older NHL prospects, which speaks volumes of his character and demeanor on and off the ice. The confidence that led Kiviharju to declare to Guerin is also visible in how he plays the game. While he may not project as a high-end prospect, there’s reason to believe he has enough tools to make an impact in the NHL. However, there is some uncertainty about how his game might translate as he moves up levels. Let’s dig into his game a bit. Strengths The game calms down when Kiviharju has the puck on his stick. He handles it with poise, and it’s extremely rare to see him make a bad decision. He has a knack for understanding the game’s trajectory and adjusting in real-time. When things break down, and players around him start to scramble, Kiviharju makes calm plays to get the puck out of the zone by skating it out of trouble or relieving pressure with short passes against the grain to evade forechecks. When his team struggles to generate offense, he’ll activate in the offensive zone to try and create a spark. Kiviharju’s poise with the puck allows him to be effective offensively when walking the blue line to create passing or shooting lanes. He doesn’t have a hard shot and prefers to make a play. Still, he uses his teammates well and can break down defenses by interchanging with forwards and attacking soft spots to create space. Kiviharju uses strong footwork to move laterally while walking the line but keeps his torso towards the play. That allows him to see the ice and keep options open. All of this is on display in the clip below. Kiviharju recognized an opportunity to attack a collapsed defense and created a goal: Kiviharju uses situational awareness to disrupt plays and deny options with his stick and body positioning in his own zone. As a smaller defenseman, he holds his own in board battles. He uses solid footwork and positioning to gain leverage, spin out of contact with possession, or poke a puck to a teammate, similar to Jared Spurgeon. Kiviharju’s footwork and sturdy frame mean he rarely takes big hits. His breakout passes are a joy to watch. He consistently throws passes to the tape at the right pace for the situation and can wire or finesse them. He isn’t a dynamic skater, but Kiviharju is efficient in that he stays balanced. He doesn’t lose his form, which usually allows him to get from point A to B at the right time. When defending rushes in the neutral zone, Kiviharju handles himself well when forced to back up against a quick transition and can read attacks to string plays out and get into passing lanes. Question marks My biggest question regarding Kiviharju’s ability to be a reliable NHL defenseman is whether he has the pace necessary to defend against players who attack him wide with speed. He’s not the swiftest backward skater. Kiviharju usually adjusts for that with positioning and awareness, but he can have trouble recovering if he gets caught flat-footed or there’s a quick counter off a turnover. That isn’t an issue too often for him now, but I could see it being something that NHL teams might exploit if he isn’t able to add some explosiveness to his backward stride or improve the power he gets when turning from backward to forwards so he can beat guys to the near side post. Kiviharju also tends to be overconfident when defending one-on-one and goes for a poke check in situations where he shouldn’t. As he moves up levels, players will also be able to exploit this. Kiviharju will have to learn to adapt his game to leagues where he’s no longer a top player who can get away with unnecessary risks simply because he’s better than everyone. I am confident he can, but it might require time and growing pains. The play below is a perfect example of something he does well and also where he has room for growth. Note how Kiviharju uses his strong lateral push to recover and get into position quickly. (He was only out of position because he got crossed up with a forward covering the point). Once he gets there, instead of relying on that positioning to deny or deflect a shot, he goes for a poke check and misses. The result is a goal against. Finally, it’s fair to wonder about Kiviharju’s NHL role. He’s an effective offensive player but not a dynamic one. He can quarterback a power play unit, but he is probably more of a distributor than someone who can be a scoring threat and would probably not be a top-two option for that role on good teams. Kiviharju isn’t a physical presence. While he doesn’t get pushed around often, he might struggle against heavy opponents. He moves well enough to defend in all situations, but Kiviharju is probably not a dynamic enough skater to be a shutdown defender against top players. Where exactly he’d fit in a lineup will have to be clarified with time. Projection When I watch Kiviharju play, I see a future NHL defenseman. He can probably be a No. 4 to 6 defenseman with time, but it might take 4 to 5 years to get there. Kiviharju’s intelligence and poise will separate him from other players with similar toolkits. If he can adapt his game to the AHL and then the NHL, he can become the type of player that coaches love because he’s well-rounded, won’t make bad decisions with the puck, and is an efficient distributor up the ice. It remains to be seen if Kiviharju is the steal of the 2024 draft. Still, if he can go from being a fourth-round pick to becoming an NHL mainstay, that would be an exceptional outcome for Judd Brackett and the rest of the Wild’s scouting staff.

We wrote about Kirill Kaprizov's incredible start on Thursday. Still, when a player goes out and drops a three-point night to extend their multi-point game streak to seven... what else can you do but marvel about him all over again? Kaprizov is refusing to slow down, adding two goals and an assist in the Minnesota Wild's 5-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning. The effort bumped Kaprizov back into the NHL lead in points (21), extended his multi-point game streak to seven, and gave Minnesota their sixth win in the past seven games. We have to add an addendum to Thursday's piece concerning Kaprizov's start: "Dolla Bill Kirill" is tied with Leon Draisaitl (2021-22) and Thomas Vanek (2013-14) for the fourth-most points through 10 games in the Salary Cap Era. Only Draisaitl and Connor McDavid have had more. Look further down the list, and you'll see titans of the game like Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby looking up at Kaprizov. That boggles the mind, and Kaprizov's hot start registers as incredible, even for someone who has spent years watching Malkin and Crosby night in and night out. "I think it just proves how good he is, how special he is," Bill Guerin marveled to Hockey Wilderness following Kaprizov's three-point outing. "You don't just do that by accident, either. You see good players get off to strong starts and things like that, but... 10 games, that's a good-sized segment. So have that, not just consistency, but high-level and produce like that is amazing." No one could ever accuse Kaprizov of flying under the radar. People have considered him among the NHL's most dynamic wingers since entering the league. Still, he seems to be garnering a new level of attention league-wide this season. Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman pinpointed him as a Hart Trophy contender two weeks ago. The Athletic's Dom Luszczyszyn and Sean Gentille recently floated a trial balloon take that Kaprizov may have surpassed last season's Hart runner-up Nikita Kucherov as the league's best winger. And why not? It shouldn't be lost on anyone that Kaprizov's two-goal, one-assist game on Friday is an identical stat line to his October 24 showing at Tampa Bay. In head-to-heads, Kaprizov has a 6-2 point advantage over his countryman Kucherov. If we want to keep comparing the two superstar Russians, we can point out that Kaprizov's seventh-straight multi-point game matches Kucherov's career-high streak. The two are tied for the fourth-longest such streak of the Salary Cap Era. Stamkos, McDavid, and Vincent Lecavalier are the only players who can claim a longer one... and if Kaprizov extends his to eight games on Sunday night, that list of players goes down to one. Kaprizov's six power-play points tied him for seventh in the NHL, and he's been even better at 5-on-5 play. His 12 points at 5-on-5 sit on top of the NHL (along with Sam Reinhart), and it's gone a long way to his 14-4 scoring advantage over his opponents when he's on the ice. Only Reinhart is enjoying a higher 5-on-5 goal differential than Kaprizov's plus-10. At this point, what else can you say? Wild fans are watching the best player in franchise history at the height of his powers, and he's putting the rest of the hockey world on notice. It's been a treat to watch, and while 10 games is a good chunk of the season, we've got a lot of time left for Kaprizov to amaze us even more.

The Minnesota Wild's most controversial offseason move wasn't a free agent signing, a trade, or a draft pick. Even if the Wild had the resources to make such a splash, a move like the rumored Patrik Laine trade may still have taken a backseat to a simple lineup card change. John Hynes almost rode his top line of Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek, and Matt Boldy to the playoffs. Playing 375 minutes -- almost all down the stretch -- these three out-scored opponents by a 30 to 18 margin. That plus-12 goal differential was tied with the Toronto Maple Leafs' Auston Matthews - Mitch Marner - Matthew Knies line and the Vancouver Canucks' Brock Boeser - J.T. Miller - Pius Suter line for the ninth-best mark in the NHL. That line was such a cheat code that it seemed unthinkable to break it up, even for lineup balance. But Hynes did, moving Eriksson Ek and Boldy to their own line, then ultimately placing 2020 first-rounder Marco Rossi in the top spot between Kaprizov and winger Mats Zuccarello. On one hand, Rossi was a highly-touted prospect the Wild likely drafted to handle this exact role. On the other hand, the Wild never seemed to warm up to him fully. Even though he scored 21 goals as a rookie, they didn't seem to see Rossi's ceiling as a top-line center. He had a big opportunity to keep proving his worth. Rossi might be soft-spoken, but his first five games have made a huge statement. His five points have him tied with Zuccarello for third on the team, behind only Kaprizov (eight) and Boldy (six). All five of his points have come at 5-on-5, where he sits in sole possession of the team lead. Rossi entered Sunday tied for the eighth-most 5-on-5 points in the NHL. There are only two other centers ahead of him: the Vegas Golden Knights' Jack Eichel and the Florida Panthers' Sam Reinhart -- and Reinhart only plays the pivot part-time. The secret to Rossi's success? It's more of the same stuff that led to his breakout last year -- and mirrors what led to Eriksson Ek's rise as a goal-scoring presence in the NHL. He can go to the net, find the soft spots in the defense, and good things happen. Look at his shot map (courtesy of Evolving-Hockey), and you'll find that nine of his 12 shot attempts at 5-on-5 have come within 20 feet of the net. Six of them have come within 11 feet or fewer. However you want to measure it, Rossi is getting high-quality chances at 5-on-5 unlike anyone else on the team and few in the NHL. Natural Stat Trick has him tied for tenth in the NHL with nine high-danger shot attempts at 5-on-5, which matches totals from Eichel, Nikita Kucherov, and Mikko Rantanen. Evolving-Hockey has him in the team lead with 1.90 expected goals in all situations, not just 5-on-5. That's more than Kaprizov and Boldy, despite getting fewer minutes and half the power play time. That's impressive, but so is Rossi's performance as a cohesive member of the top line. So far, the trio has out-scored opponents by a 5-to-1 margin at 5-on-5, and while scoring 83% of the goals or so won't continue, their controlling 58.6% of the expected goals share should keep them firmly in the positive. They're also carrying over their success from last season when they out-scored opponents 19 to 13 at 5-on-5. Add that all up, and this top line is up 24 to 14 -- a 63.2% of the goal share that actually (and slightly) bests the Kaprizov - Eriksson Ek - Boldy line from last season (62.5%). You aren't likely to see Rossi do the Holy Nordy, did you see that?! kind of plays that Kaprizov and Boldy make, at least not yet. But he's so good at doing small things to keep plays alive, whether it's his positioning, winning board battles, or making a heads-up play to keep the puck in the offensive zone. Watch Rossi's goal against St. Louis, only don't pay attention to the end of the play. Look at everything he does before Kaprizov puts the puck on his stick. He pressures Colton Parayko and forces him to dump the puck along the boards to Nick Leddy, who promptly turns it over to Kaprizov. It takes Rossi no time to change directions and get into a shooting position, which he stays in. He hangs in a soft spot nine feet from the net, where he's untouched. Elite hockey sense is going to get you a lot of goals that look almost effortless. In some senses, this is five games, a small sample size. At the same time, the Wild drafted Rossi to be a scoring center, and he had that pedigree at juniors and the AHL. He had success with this line last season, and it's unsurprising if he made a major leap in the offseason, considering the tremendous growth he showed after the summer of 2023. We may be watching a legit Top-Line Center taking his final form right before our eyes.

Brock Faber’s contract extension this summer was not only important in locking up the Minnesota Wild’s bona fide No. 1 defenseman of the future. It was also perhaps the final step in setting the stage for next summer’s much-anticipated cap relief coming the Wild’s way. Since that fateful day in July during the summer of 2021, when Minnesota bought out Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, Wild fans have keyed in on the 2025 off-season as their light at the end of the tunnel. Next July, Minnesota will finally be (mostly) out from under the massive dead cap hits the league has burdened them with. Most of us figured 2025 would be a spending spree for Minnesota. Many of their highly-touted prospects will begin making an impact, coupled with having money to spend on important vets to help surround their superstar in Kirill Kaprizov to compete for the Stanley Cup. Some of that excitement has been dampened over the past calendar year, as GM Bill Guerin has extended a handful of current veterans to modest extensions over the next three to four years. With Faber’s unexpected breakout season landing his second contract among the elite defensemen in the league, you have to wonder just how many fireworks will be set off when free agency opens next July. Now’s as good a time as ever to look ahead to what the summer of 2025 could look like for the State of Hockey. It’s time to review each position group and check in on how much cap space is locked into each unit and what impact that may have on how much flexibility the Wild have going into their contention window. Forwards As it stands, the Guerin has locked in eight forwards to contracts going into next season. Kaprizov, Matt Boldy, Joel Eriksson Ek, Mats Zuccarello, Marcus Foligno, Ryan Hartman, Yakov Trenin, and Frederick Gaudreau’s contracts total $38,975,000 in allotted cap space. But Guerin hasn’t locked every player up yet. Those eight contracts mean there are likely four roster spots up for grabs. Among the expiring contracts, Marat Khusnutdinov and Marco Rossi are prime candidates for extensions (sorry, Marcus Johansson) if the Wild don't trade them before then. One can assume Liam Ohgren and a prospect such as Riley Heidt will likely make the roster next year, if not as early as this season. Since all we can do is speculate about what could happen 11 months from now, let’s just assume Khusnutdinov and Rossi earn their way to extensions. At this point in their development, they would likely sign bridge deals. When looking at recent bridge deals for young forwards, two examples come to mind that are favorable comps to both Wild forwards. The Philadelphia Flyers extended Bobby Brink for two years this summer at a $1.5 million average annual value (AAV). His production isn’t far from what Khusnutdinov would likely produce this season (11 goals and 12 assists). It’s hard to imagine the Russian speedster outproducing Brink’s production due to a bottom-six role in Minnesota this year. As for Rossi, Wild management seems a little bullish on the small center. If his point total matches or exceeds what he provided in a top-six role last year, his bridge deal should come in higher than Khusnutdinov's. For Rossi, there’s a fairly close comparison to a recent bridge deal signed north of the border. In July, the Ottawa Senators inked their young center, Shane Pinto, to a 2-year, $3.75M AAV bridge deal. Last year, Pinto scored at a .66 points/game pace, slightly ahead of Rossi’s .57 points/game. Admittedly, the comparisons are slightly more difficult due to Pinto’s off-ice issues. Still, his on-ice production and positional value are similar to Rossi’s. And it’s not as though NHL teams are known for considering red flags when signing contracts, so the contract comparison is a good start. That leaves two roster spots amongst the forwards, likely taken up by Ohgren, another prospect, or perhaps a free agent signing. But more on that later. Defense The blue line is much less murky, thanks to five defensemen already locked up for next season and a very low chance any of them aren’t on the roster. Jared Spurgeon, Jonas Brodin, Jake Middleton, Zach Bogosian, and Faber are all locked in for the 2025-26 campaign. Outside Bogosian, they either have trade protection or are so valuable that a trade is out of the question. Those five account for $27.675 million in cap space, leaving just two more roster spots to fill. The most likely outcome is that Zeev Buium will leave college either next spring or summer and assumes the final spot in the starting lineup. In that case, he brings his cheap entry-level contract with him. Unless one of their defensemen in Iowa proves themselves worthy of a promotion, the final spot would likely be filled by a free-agent defenseman who can handle the duties of being a seventh defenseman. Or perhaps Declan Chisholm proves himself worthy of a low-cost extension this summer. Either way, Minnesota's blue line is fairly easy to predict for next season. Goaltending Again, this is fairly simple, barring a Filip Gustavsson trade in the next calendar year. With Marc-Andre Fleury likely playing his last season in Minnesota, and perhaps even the NHL, one can assume next year’s tandem will consist of Gustavsson alongside highly-touted prospect Jesper Wallstedt. The “Gus Bus” would account for $3.75M of cap space, while Wallstedt would require an extension given his entry-level deal expires. Projecting Wallstedt’s extension is a little trickier, given how little he has played at the NHL level so far and that he figures to be part of a rotating trio this season. However, there is a good comparison for him in South Beach. Florida extended their former first-round draft pick in 2022 after he only played in 36 games over two seasons. Like Wallstedt, Spencer Knight had not shown much but was a highly touted draft pick. He was awarded a three-year, $4.5M AAV. Unless injuries or poor play devastates the Wild’s net this upcoming season, Wallstedt’s games played total should come in slightly under or right at Knight’s level. Given that, it’s safe to assume the Swedish netminder comes in at a number similar to Knight's, likely between $3.5 and $4.5 million. So where does all that leave us? Assuming the above is mostly correct (and we are projecting here, so give us some slack), the Wild will have $83,611,667 allocated to 13 forwards, six defensemen, and two goaltenders. Given that the NHL’s salary cap is expected to rise roughly $92 to $94M, the Wild should have between $8 and $10M in cap space for the 2025-26 season and only need one single forward or defenseman. Even with all the distress over recent extensions, that’s a fair amount of cap space to sign or trade for an impactful player or two during free agency. While the Wild may not be nearly as aggressive in reshaping their roster next summer as most had hoped following the Parise and Suter buyouts, there is plenty of space to make impactful additions to an already solid roster. A lot can change between now and then, but at this moment, the Wild are still poised to make a splash or two next summer.

The Minnesota Wild made no secret of wanting to get bigger, faster, and stronger this offseason. Did that happen? Depends on whether 6-foot-2 Yakov Trenin or 6-foot-0 Jakub Lauko being in the bottom-six moves the needle for you. That wasn't the plan for Minnesota to add size, though. As reported repeatedly by Michael Russo and Joe Schmidt of The Athletic, the Wild had their feelers up to move out 5-foot-9 Marco Rossi. As Russo pegged on June 25, the Columbus Blue Jackets were one destination that made sense. The Jackets had a collection of young, once highly-touted prospects who may have fallen out of favor. David Jiricek (sixth overall, 2022) and Kent Johnson (fifth overall, 2021) had high-profile demotions that put their futures in Columbus into question. Meanwhile, Cole Sillinger (12th overall, 2021) has seen his development plateau since his 18-year-old rookie season. Of those three, Johnson was the most intriguing option in a potential Rossi trade because he was the closest to a one-to-one comparable with the young Wild center. While Johnson has mostly played the wing in the NHL and took a total of 23 faceoffs in his two years at Michigan, Columbus drafted him as a center. Would the Wild have tried moving Johnson back to the pivot? In a world where Ryan Hartman is a center, anything is possible. If so, Johnson could have been an ideal return for Bill Guerin in a Rossi trade. While Rossi is more filled-out at this stage of his career, Johnson has a 6-foot-0 frame that offers him more height. Maybe Johnson's skating isn't better, but one out of three ain't bad? However, the draft and free agency have come and gone. If you were dreaming about Johnson in a Wild uniform, that dream was already dwindling. Rossi appears to be locked into a roster spot on the Wild, and Minnesota's $1.5 million in cap room dictates that they keep Rossi's Entry Level Contract in-house. Last week, the door slammed shut on Johnson completely. The Blue Jackets signed Johnson to a bridge deal, locking the restricted free agent into a two-year contract for $1.8 million per season. That's more than a movable contract, but that's also a big reason Columbus wouldn't move him. Say what you want about how much he struggled last year, but Johnson had a 16-goal, 40-point rookie season in 2022-23. There's plenty of room to grow there. Plus, the Jackets have an opportunity to put any unpleasantness from last season behind them. They fired general manager Jarmo Kekäläinen and kicked interim GM John Davidson upstairs. They also cycled through coaches Mike Babcock and Pascal Vincent. In comes GM Don Waddell and head coach Dean Evason, and thus, an opportunity for a fresh start. For that trade framework to be possible going forward, Rossi and Johnson would likely have to be distressed assets. The Wild would still have to send out signals that they want to offload Rossi, and Johnson would have to burn through his goodwill with a new coach/GM regime. At that point, it wouldn't be a particularly attractive trade. The good news is that Minnesota's inability to move Rossi has a great shot to be a blessing in disguise from Guerin's perspective. It's still confusing that the Wild, with their lack of centers throughout their history, would look to trade (arguably) the first true center in their history to score 40 points before turning 23. The Wild have hesitated to commit to Rossi in the same way they've done with Matt Boldy and, most recently, Brock Faber. But their young center has shown a fanatical commitment to improving in the offseason, and he has every bit as much room to grow as Johnson. The Johnson Dream may be over, but realizing the Rossi Dream may be an even better outcome for the Wild.

It's incredibly difficult to anticipate an NHL team's needs years into the future. For example, last season, most fans believed the Minnesota Wild's defensive prospect pool was stacked. With Carson Lambos, Daemon Hunt, David Spacek, Ryan O'Rourke, and Kyle Masters in the AHL or turning pro, it looked like the Wild had a future logjam on their hands. After those five defensemen struggled to gain traction with the Iowa Wild this year, Minnesota suddenly didn't have enough defensemen, to the point where the Wild are reportedly set to ink a four-year, $4 million-plus AAV contract extension for Jake Middleton on Monday. The deal would cement Jonas Brodin and Middleton on the left side of Minnesota's defense through the 2027-28 season. If the Wild kept Middleton under contract for five more years (including the last season of his current deal), it would signal a lack of faith in their prospect pool. Brodin and Middleton would ensure that only one of Lambos, Hunt, O'Rourke, or Jack Peart could assume top-six NHL minutes. Suppose Minnesota believes just one (or zero) will pan out, then it might make sense for Middleton to hold that spot down for a half-decade. But again, it's tough to anticipate the needs of an NHL team, as they could change in a weekend. Days before free agency, Minnesota added two major left-shot defensemen to their organization in first-round pick Zeev Buium and fourth-rounder Aron Kiviharju. These signings change the long-term outlook for Minnesota at the position, and they should change their plans with Middleton. The Wild have a potential No. 1 defenseman on the left side of the blueline in Buium, and he should be NHL-ready extremely soon. He already led the NCAA in time on ice and points from a defenseman and won a National Championship. The Wild are having him play his sophomore year at Denver University, but how much more will he be able to accomplish after that? Buium may be in the NHL at the end of this upcoming season before Middleton's current contract expires. With Buium's big-play ability, solid defense, and minute-munching, he could supplant Middleton on the depth chart for a playoff run. If not next year, then soon afterward, which would give Minnesota a third-pairing defenseman making $4 million or more. It might not even be long until Kiviharju can play in the NHL. He's been in and out of Finnish Liiga since September 2022, when he was 16. If he gets back to his pre-draft year trajectory, he could easily be ready for NHL action by the start of the 2026-27 season. And who knows, with a dominant season in Liiga, perhaps he could even push for a spot in 2025-26 as Buium breaks into the NHL. Then there's the possibility that one of Lambos, Peart, Hunt, or O'Rourke put it together and become NHL-caliber. After adding Kiviharju to the mix, odds are one of them will be worthy of displacing Middleton long before his reported four-year deal expires. The Wild will certainly cite "cost certainty" if and when they ink Middleton to an extension. But what makes Minnesota certain they'll want to pay Middleton $4 million in four years? Or three? Or two? Middleton succeeded in his time in Minnesota as a defensive specialist alongside Jared Spurgeon. Last year, we discovered what happens when you take Spurgeon away from Middleton, and it wasn't pretty. Suddenly, his calling card defense looked a lot less effective. He went from controlling 61.9% of the expected goals share in 155 minutes with Spurgeon to 47.8% in 802 minutes with Brock Faber. The idea of blocking off a roster spot for four years with an expensive, third-pairing defenseman is already a sketchy proposition. Doing it for one whose success seems to rely on another player (Spurgeon, whose contract will expire halfway through Middleton's likely extension) simply seems like bad roster management. Signing Middleton this week would echo many of the problems from the extensions the Wild handed out last offseason. Namely: Why sign it now, a year before Minnesota has to make a decision? Why tie up that flexibility in a role player before getting any of the information they'll learn about their prospects next year? By next May, Minnesota will have a great handle on Buium's NHL timetable, and that's if they don't already have him on the roster. They'll get to see how well Kiviharju bounces back from his injury and handles a full-time role in Liiga. Their AHL defensemen (who are all 23 and under) will have another season of development and the possibility of taking major strides. Middleton isn't going anywhere and isn't getting any more expensive next season. They can wait to see what they have in their prospect pool, then make a more informed decision with a term tailored to their needs. It's hard to see Bill Guerin deviating from his plan, particularly for one of his beloved veterans, but plans can and should change with new information. The Wild planned on signing Middleton before getting two stud left defensemen in Buium and Kiviharju. Now that they have those in-house, they must adopt a wait-and-see posture.

The Minnesota Wild are in a spot where they could really use Danila Yurov next season. Their secondary scoring over this past season was all but non-existent, and their skill and depth at forward suffered from a steady stream of cap casualties over the past three years. Yurov could have theoretically solved those problems next season. His ability to play any forward position would give Minnesota much-needed flexibility and ensure he could fill any hole the Wild have in their top-nine. His stellar season in the KHL (21 goals, 49 points in 62 games) shows that he has skill to spare. His 6-foot-1 frame would offer the size upgrade in the lineup that the front office is apparently desperate for. He even has a winning pedigree at the age of 20. His Metallurg Magnitogorsk team just won the KHL championship in a sweep after a regular season in which he was his team's leading scorer. He'd be the total package. Unfortunately, the Wild are waiting another year for Yurov's arrival. Just after he lifted the Gagarin Cup, he re-upped his contract with his hometown Magnitogorsk, making a solid sum of $400K-plus. It might discourage Wild fans, who remember the long wait and lost seasons when they could have seen Kirill Kaprizov in Minnesota's lineup. But while watching a year of Yurov from afar will be a bummer, it's important to realize how good of a spot the Wild are in with the 2021 first-round pick. Yurov should never have fallen to the No. 24 overall pick. He was considered a top-10 prospect heading into the draft, and the "Russian Factor" was becoming less and less of a factor. While perceived uncertainty with Russian prospects will always be there, thanks to the KHL's competitive nature with the NHL, players like Andrei Svechnikov, Vitali Kravtsov, and Vasili Podkolzin had recently gone in their draft's top-10 picks. Things were trending in a direction where Minnesota wouldn't have had a sniff at someone like Yurov, but then Russia's invasion of Ukraine threw more uncertainty than ever in Russian prospects' timelines. After the war started, their projected arrivals to the U.S. may not even have been legal, let alone timely. Since then, these questions benefitted teams like the Wild who rolled the dice on players like Yurov. While the IIHF has banned Russia (and Belarus) from international competition, there have been no restrictions on Russian players going to play in North America. Yurov isn't staying in the KHL due to geopolitical reasons. He told The Athletic's Michael Russo over an online exchange that his decision to stay came from wanting "more consistency from myself and to gain physical strength." Yurov reiterated that his goal is to play in the NHL and that he hopes to feel ready to make the jump after next season. If that happens, Yurov should make his Wild debut in October 2025, just two months before his 22nd birthday. You can contrast that with Kaprizov, who made his NHL debut in January 2021 at 23 years old, about four months before turning 24. Or, hey, don't even compare that to Kaprizov. Making the NHL full-time at 21 is a fairly normal timetable for all but the most NHL-ready prospects. The Calgary Flames' Connor Zary was the No. 24 pick in 2020, the draft class before Yurov's. He made his NHL debut on November 1 this season, after his 22nd birthday. No one in Calgary seems to mind, as Zary made an impact this year. For a Wild-specific example, look to Marco Rossi, who made his full-time NHL debut early this year, just after his 22nd birthday. Sure, the Wild had him play 21 games prior, but what good did that do the team? It probably hurt his stock more than it helped to tread water without scoring points for 21 games at ages 20 and 21. Yurov holds the record for most points in the KHL by a 20-year-old, and it's worth noting that most of the players Yurov passed didn't step into the NHL at age-21 and didn't always make an immediate impact. Vladimir Tarasenko made that jump in the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season. Even with the benefit of 31 KHL games to warm up, Tarasenko scored a fine-but-not-great eight goals and 19 points in 38 games for the St. Louis Blues. The following season, he posted a much more Tarasenko-like 21 goals and 43 points in 64 games. Evgeny Kuznetsov is another superstar Russian prospect who jumped to the NHL at age-21. Like Tarasenko, Kuznetsov played 31 KHL games before going to the Washington Capitals during the 2013-14 season, and like Tarasenko, he was... fine. He scored three goals and nine points in 17 games as a 21-year-old, jumping to 11 goals and 37 points at age 22. Yurov also doesn't quite have the experience players like Tarasenko, Kuznetsov, and Kaprizov had at this stage in their development. Those players got top ice time at ages 18, 19, and 20. Yurov got minimal ice time with Magnitogorsk until this season. Even including playoffs, Yurov only has 85 games as a top-line player in a top league like the KHL. Compare that to the 200-plus games of regular-season KHL action with which Tarasenko and Kuznetsov arrived. Choosing to stay in Russia for another year to gain physical strength and experience might even be a sign of maturity for Yurov. The Wild wants to have him, but what if their timetable is too aggressive? What if Yurov came over this fall and struggled? Would doubts creep into his head (as well as the heads of the fan base and front office) that he was a one-year wonder? Maybe, and maybe not, but there's that risk. Instead, Yurov builds his confidence as The Guy on Magnitogorsk again. He'll be mastering the level that he's at rather than rushing himself to the NHL. Playing top minutes of meaningful hockey while trying to repeat a championship season can't be bad for his development. So, is it a bummer that we won't get to see Yurov in a Wild sweater this year? Sure. Once again, Minnesota could use him. But they'll be able to use him just as much next year, and he'll be in a position to make an immediate impact. Imagine you could go back to that 2021 draft and ask Judd Brackett and Bill Guerin if they would lock in an ETA of the start of the 2025-26 season or gamble that they could get him earlier, with the risk that the process could drag out for years. With all the questions surrounding the situation, Brackett and Guerin likely would have taken that guaranteed arrival time. They might have even done backflips on the way to file that hypothetical paperwork. Waiting sucks, but it's important to remember that the Wild are way ahead of the game when it comes to Yurov.

The lineup that the Minnesota Wild iced versus the Chicago Blackhawks late last night left much to be desired. For the umpteenth time, we saw head coach John Hynes opt for veteran experience over the promising potential of the youth. Hynes had Marco Rossi skating on the third line again with *checks notes* Marcus Foligno and Freddy Gaudreau. While Foligno has had a relatively good season, his value comes from his defensive impact, not his offensive touch. Gaudreau has been dreadful all around this season (enjoy four more years of it) and will do Rossi no favors. It’s also baffling that the Wild continue to ice Jon Merrill and Alex Goligoski. Merrill and Goligoski are not going to magically become better players. The duo has produced the lowest expected goals for percentages (xGF%), two of the three highest goals against average per 60 minutes (GA/60), and the two highest shots against per 60 minutes (SA/60) on the team. The chances of Goligoski and Merrill somehow improving are slim to none. Merrill is 32, and Goligoski is 38. Ryan Hartman returned to his role as the center between Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello, which is defensible but also makes you wonder why. While Hartman can play that role, why aren’t they putting Rossi there? Hartman has proven that he can be good and sometimes even great in that role. At this point, though, is that what the Wild needs? I understand that the owner, general manager, coach, and players are all trying to make a playoff push. Guerin said he’s "not waiving the white flag" on January 15. It’s natural to want to make the postseason. While a playoff spot is still in reach, the odds are stacked against this team. MoneyPuck.com gives the Wild a 2.2% chance of making the postseason. The Wild currently are tied for 26th in the league with 49 points. Upon returning from the All-Star Break, the Wild struggled to get a 2-1 win over the 2023-24 Chicago Blackhawks. Let me repeat, the 2023-24 Chicago Blackhawks… Two depth players, Vinni Lettieiri and Foligno, carried the Wild. The top of the lineup failed to contribute. Gaudreau and Marcus Johansson got some cardio in but not much else. Nothing personal against those two, but if they continue to play like that, why not shift them down the lineup? Gaudreau is perfectly capable of playing in a fourth-line role. Johansson can slot in as a third-line winger and give someone else a top-6 opportunity. The Wild called up Adam Beckman because of his energy and willingness to shoot the puck. Then they sat him down and told him he’d be a healthy scratch. Why not give him an opportunity next to Matt Boldy and Joel Eriksson Ek on the second line? Guerin sent a public message to Beckman, spelling out how this was “his chance” to succeed. How is Beckman supposed to succeed sitting in the press box or playing eight minutes a night on the fourth line? The Chicago game was a perfect opportunity for Beckman to prove he belongs. It doesn’t make sense to have him watching from the rafters. No offense to Jake Lucchini, but Beckman still has a chance to prove he can be a capable scoring winger in the NHL. Why not give Beckman the minutes that go to Johansson or Gaudreau and have Lucchini sit in the press box as Johansson or Gaudreau slide down the lineup? It also makes little sense for newly-acquired defenseman Declan Chisholm to sit out. Why not let the new guy play over Merrill or Goligoski? What do you have to lose against the Blackhawks? Injuries play a large role in this situation. Jonas Brodin was out last game, and captain Jared Spurgeon won’t play the rest of the season. That’s two marquee defensemen gone. Pat Maroon and Connor Dewar are also on IR and were meaningful contributors to the bottom six. Still, open spots should be opportunities for the young players to step up, not a chance to ice the status quo. If Beckman can’t even get a look in the lineup against the worst team in the NHL, what hope does a player like Marat Khustnutdinov or Danilla Yurov have? They look like essential pieces to the Wild’s future core. While Yurov’s future for this season is still undecided, Khusnutdinov could be stateside by the end of the month. The Wild don’t have a lot left to lose. From injuries to inconsistencies, this team’s immediate future looks bleak. The playoffs are a long shot. Management and coaches know what they will get from their aging veterans. Why not give the younger players a chance to test their mettle? If it goes poorly, at least they learned something about the team’s future In a season that’s slipping away, let the kids play. All stats and data via HockeyDB, Evolving Hockey, CapFriendly, and NHL.com unless otherwise noted.

It's getting impossible to ignore Danila Yurov's dominance in the KHL. Thanks to various factors, they got Yurov, a top-10 talent in his draft class, with the 24th pick of the 2022 Draft. Checking in about 20 months later, Yurov might be a top-5 member of his class at this precise moment. Heck, maybe even better than that. Few members of the 2022 class are making an impact in the NHL this early on. Defenseman Pavel Mintyukov is something of a revelation for the Anaheim Ducks, with 19 points in 40 games. Meanwhile, just a bit east in the desert, Logan Cooley has 25 points in 48 games for the Arizona Coyotes. Everyone else is currently more accomplished in other leagues than in the NHL. As for Yurov, he might be shining the brightest in arguably the second-best league in the world. Yurov entered Tuesday's action sitting in the top 20 in the KHL in goals (21) and points (45). If that kind of production sounds absurd for a 20-year-old, that's because it is. Here's the list of 20-year-old KHL players with as many or more points per game as Yurov has this season: Vladimir Tarasenko, 2011-12: 0.87 PPG Kirill Kaprizov 2017-18: 0.87 PPG Evgeny Kuznetsov, 2012-13: 0.86 PPG Danila Yurov, 2023-24: 0.83 PPG When you're head-and-shoulders above someone like Artemi Panarin at age 20 (0.62 PPG in 2011-12), you're cooking. When you're a more prolific goal-scorer than Kuznetsov and Kaprizov at that age? Let's go. And Yurov might leave Metallurg Magnitogorsk next season. While the Wild are reportedly fine with their star prospect developing another season in the KHL, his Russian squad doesn't seem to want to pay him like a player who's leading his team in goals and points. If Metallurg lowballs Yurov, what would stop him from jumping to North America? The sticking point would likely be their strong preference for starting their top prospects in the AHL, making them work their way up to the big show. The Wild have done this at nearly every turn under Bill Guerin, even when it didn't make sense. When Matt Boldy signed out of Boston College in Spring 2021, burning a year of his Entry-Level Contract no matter what, Guerin refused to give his star prospect a sniff at the lineup. That came even after Boldy torched the AHL for six goals and 18 points in 14 games. Infamously, the same thing happened with Marco Rossi over the past two seasons. Rossi was nearly a point-per-game center for the Iowa Wild, whose parent club desperately needed help at his position. Guerin summed up his philosophy during this ordeal. "He's got to go through the process," Guerin told The Athletic's Michael Russo and Joe Smith in December 2022. "You really have to work for it. It's not just given to you. You really have to earn it." Brock Faber has been the only exception to this rule. In fairness, Boldy was ready for primetime the second he signed out of the University of Minnesota last season. Still, wasn't Boldy also at that point two years before? Perhaps Guerin's philosophy is evolving. But if he remains dogmatic in his "earn it" philosophy, why would that stop Yurov from coming over? If he plays in the NHL, Yurov would make more than double the $330K that is apparently on the table for him to stay in Russia. The catch is that he has to be in the NHL to make that money. If he's "earning it" in Des Moines, one of the "its" he'll be earning is a salary of around $70K, around 20% of what he'd make in the KHL. To make the move to America make sense financially for Yurov, the Wild would have to guarantee him a spot on the NHL roster (or at least have an agreement to get loaned back to Russia rather than waiting in Iowa). As a rule, the Wild don't do this. But this time, they should make an exception. Why? Because Yurov is exceptional. Excelling in the KHL to this degree at such a young age probably has enough proof that Yurov can play in the NHL next year. But we don't have to blindly guess what a 21-year-old Yurov might do with a roster spot. In Tarasenko and Kuznetsov's cases, we know what they did as NHL players at age-21. Tarasenko made his debut in the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season. The St. Louis Blues eased him into a role, playing him only 13 minutes and 25 seconds a night. He scored nine goals and 19 points in 38 games and was third among regular Blues forwards in points per hour at 5-on-5. Kuznetsov got a shorter stint a year later, playing 17 games. But he also scored about a half-point per game, collecting nine, including three goals. Assuming that's the ballpark Yurov would be in, let's do a quick check of the Wild forwards scoring a half-point per game or more. The list is Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek, Mats Zuccarello, Matt Boldy, Marco Rossi, and Ryan Hartman. It feels like there's more than enough room to add another high-upside scorer to the mix. Why wouldn't the Wild sign up for that next season? Especially when the most important thing for young Russian players is to get them over. Yurov was available to the Wild in the first place because teams didn't think he'd be able to come to North America faster than other first-round prospects. Not only is this wrong, but Metallurg is practically gift-wrapping the opportunity to get a star-caliber prospect to the Wild at age 21. It looks like all Minnesota has to do to take advantage is to guarantee a roster spot for Yurov. Maybe it's not the forward equivalent of Faber's do-it-all, minute-munching role. Maybe Yurov starts out playing a minimal amount of 5-on-5 time, but being an ace up John Hynes' sleeve on the power play. Isn't that a no-brainer, even if just to make absolutely sure he doesn't delay his arrival past next year? But let's take this a step further. Imagine Chuck Fletcher having an opportunity to import a 21-year-old Kirill Kaprizov onto his roster in 2018-19. Fletcher could have added him to the mix before the old Wild core fell apart. Imagine that all Fletcher has to do is guarantee him a roster spot... but he refuses to. The Wild fired after the 2018-19 season. Suppose this imaginary scenario were true and got out. Forget getting fired; he may never have gotten another GM opportunity. Who cares about dogma? Successfully navigating the NHL requires flexibility. Guerin and the Wild showed that flexibility with Faber, and it's paid off beyond everyone's wildest dreams. With Minnesota in the final year of their $15 million salary cap disadvantage, they need all the help they can get. Yurov represents a potential life preserver they can have when they need it the most. Guarantee him a spot on the boat and go from there.

Even the Minnesota Wild bye weeks are packed with news these days. Most players have taken this time off to likely lounge on warm beaches as the league’s best arrives in Toronto, but the news around the team keeps churning. According to The Athletic's Michael Russo, a few Minnesota prospects are close to making their decision on turning pro in North America sooner than later. Both of their high-profile Russian-born prospects seem to be at a decision point to either return to the KHL next year or cross the pond. 2020 second-round pick Marat Khusnutdinov could be here as soon as his season ends in February, which aligns with the typical arrival date for Russian players. His fellow countryman and former first-round pick in the 2022 draft, Danila Yurov, seems to be on a faster track. In a surprising report, Yurov's KHL club has offered him an extension. But the proposed $330k contract is shockingly low for a KHL superstar. So much so that rumors are circulating that he hasn’t signed the contract because he may be debating coming over to the NHL rather than staying another year in the Russian pro league. For a season that seems destined to end with the Wild missing the playoffs, watching at least one of their Russian prospects play for the NHL club before the season ends is tantalizing. Even if Yurov won’t be here until next year and likely start in the AHL, getting him to the States is just the next step in his development. While most fans will be happy to just get their eyes on a few touted prospects, their early arrival will be extremely important for Minnesota's coaching staff and front office. Why? Because while both players are important cogs in the Wild’s future, Minnesota’s staff needs to determine how they will fit within the roster construction. They drafted Khusnutdinov and Yurov as uber-talented offensive talents. But at the same time, both players have uncertainty about whether they will be a center at the NHL level or if the Wild will kick them out to the wing. The big club needs to get their eyes on both players for an extended period to determine which position they will play because the answer to that question will play a huge factor in how Minnesota will add to its roster in the future. If one or both of Yurov or Khusnutdinov can prove their mettle at center, the Wild can cross off depth down the middle, one of the most important requirements of a contending team. The Wild have been searching for impact centers for almost their entire existence. They never could find the type of playmaking center to pair with Mikko Koivu during his prime, which played a large role in their inability to compete in the playoffs. But now, the Wild’s center depth looks more encouraging than ever. Joel Eriksson Ek has been a known commodity for a handful of years. Marco Rossi's emergence has been a welcome discovery. But beyond those two, the depth starts to drop off a bit. Ryan Hartman is not a traditional center, and some of their other prospects, Riley Heidt and Charlie Stramel, are still pretty far away in their development. Waiting on their arrival still leaves a lot of uncertainty at center for a team looking to compete for a Stanley Cup in a few years when the Ryan Suter and Zach Parise buyout hits mostly come off the books. That brings us back to Yurov and Khusnutdinov and the importance of getting them to the States sooner than later. Having them in North America would allow the Wild complete control of their deployment in the NHL or AHL. Minnesota's staff can fully understand how their potential at center translates to the NHL. If one or both of them can prove themselves as a true center, you can start to see the makeup of a contender begin to take shape. A forward group with some sort of combination of Rossi, Eriksson Ek, and either Yurov or Khusnutdinov at center has the potential to be the best collection in franchise history. Pairing that center depth with their superstar in Kirill Kaprizov, an elite goaltender in Jesper Wallstedt, plus an extremely deep blue line, and you have the makings of an elite contender. And just in time for when that contention window opens. Even better, being able to place Yurov or Khusnutdinov at center would allow their other center prospects time to develop at their own pace, instead of feeling forced to elevate them into roles they’re not ready for. Finding out if their Russian prospects can play center would be huge for the Minnesota Wild's future roster construction. Let’s just hope they can get here sooner than later so we can all find out.

It's too bad that the only goalies on earth hotter than Jesper Wallstedt since John Hynes took over the Minnesota Wild are Filip Gustavsson and Marc-Andre Fleury. It's not often that a young goalie leads the AHL in save percentage and finds themselves with no room at the inn, but that's where Wallstedt is at right now. Albeit, the Wild (and even the State of Hockey) weren't exactly clamoring for the 21-year-old goalie to get to the NHL, even when both their goaltenders were sinking the season. Everyone seemed to be on the program of letting Wallstedt earn his stripes in the AHL while Gustavsson tried to get his game together, and Fleury continued his pursuit of second-place in all-time goalie wins. On Tuesday night, Wallstedt stopped 30 of 31 shots in a 6-1 Iowa Wild victory over the Rockford Ice Hogs. It was Wallstedt's third straight win, bringing the 2021 first-round pick to 9-4-0 on the season. Wallstedt stymied 113 of 117 shots in those three games, bringing his save percentage up to a league-leading .939. Goalies often go through hot and cold stretches, and Wallstedt was no exception last season. We can see it in his month-by-month splits: October/November: .895 December: .907 January: .958 February: .889 March: .918 April: .888 It all added up to a .908 save percentage, which is respectable for a 20-year-old AHL rookie making his debut on North American ice rinks that are different than the dimensions he's used to in Sweden. But while Wallstedt could get on strong runs, Wild fans didn't see him putting together long stretches of consistency. He trended neither up nor down during the season. This year, the consistency is perhaps even more impressive than the raw save percentage. Over his last nine games, Wallstedt hasn't dipped below a .900 save percentage in even one contest. He's allowed two or fewer goals in 10 of his 13 starts. Not only is the talent on display, but the Iowa Wild know exactly what they'll get out of their goalie on a near-nightly basis. Even better news: When AHL goalies are as good and as young as Wallstedt is, that's as powerful a statement as can be that they will hack it in the NHL. As it stands, Wallstedt is No. 3 all-time in save percentage (minimum 10 games) for a 21-year-old AHL goalie. Just look at who else is on the list he's joining: 1. Jack Campbell: 942 2. Marc-Andre Fleury: .939 3. Jesper Wallstedt: .939 4. Robin Lehner: .938 5. Jonathan Bernier: .936 6. Andrei Vasilevskiy: .935 7. John Gibson: .935 8. Juuse Saros: .934 9. Jaroslav Halak: .932 10. Dustin Wolf: .932 Wolf is the only player for whom we don't more-or-less know how their career played out. Fleury and Vasilevskiy have won Vezina Trophies, with Lehner and Saros finishing as finalists. Halak has two Jennings Trophies (awarded to the team allowing the fewest of goals), including one as the 1A starter in 2011-12. Gibson had a case as the best goalie in the world for about a half-decade. In short, it is a decorated bunch. Only Campbell and Bernier can really be said to have gone on to be relative disappointments, spending most of their careers as 1B or backup-level netminders. But if you're looking at the track record as a whole, 75% of these names having long, productive NHL careers can only be encouraging. This is usually the part where we say, "Oh, but this is a small sample size." That's true, in a sense; 13 games don't make a season. Goalies can get hot for 13 games, no problem. What's weird about this list, though, is that putting up these kinds of numbers in small sample sizes hasn't stopped some of these goalies from becoming the cream of the NHL's crop. Fleury's minor-league performance came in 2005-06, and he played just 12 games for the Wilkes-Scranton Barre Penguins, then played in 50 games with Pittsburgh. Vasilevskiy logged just 12 games for the Syracuse Crunch at age 21, with Gibson getting 11 games for the Norfolk Admirals, and Saros only 15 games with the Milwaukee Admirals at Wallstedt's age. Small sample sizes? Perhaps. Flukes? Definitely not, given how their careers went. Wallstedt is doing this all behind a defense that's also fairly inexperienced. Dakota Mermis and Andy Welinski give Iowa some veteran experience on the blueline, but those are the exceptions, particularly when Mermis is with Minnesota (as he was last night). 24-year-old Simon Johansson is the "old guy" of the group. Daemon Hunt and Ryan O'Rourke are 21. Carson Lambos, Kyle Masters, and David Spacek are all 20. There is talent on that blueline, but they're all first-and-second year AHLers. They're very raw at the pro level and serve as the line of defense in front of Wallstedt. As absurd as it sounds, maybe it makes perfect sense. Wallstedt's youth and relative inexperience aren't stopping him from putting up all-time numbers. So why should the youth and relative inexperience of his teammates stop him? We might still have way to go before we see Wallstedt in St. Paul, but the State of Hockey should still keep an eye on him in Des Moines. The opportunity to witness a 21-year-old dominating the AHL is too rare and special to ignore. All data via Elite Prospects and the AHL official website.

Here we go again. Training camp has begun. It’s that wonderful time of the year when hockey players can walk out of a cold rink and into the final warm days of fall. It’s a time for excitement and the building anticipation of a new season. For the NHL, it’s no different. Most players are back from their summer vacations, and their bodies are healthier than they will be all season. Most players, but apparently not all. On Thursday, we learned that first-line center Ryan Hartman was dealing with a nagging upper-body injury that left him out of all contact drills at practice. Although the ailment is not related to the knee injury he obtained during last year's week-long playoff run (one last dig – I’m moving on now, I promise), having the center typically next to Kirill Kaprizov already limited before the start of a long season is less than ideal. But it seems Hartman will only miss some limited time ahead of the season and be ready to go by opening night. Evason described the Chicago native’s injury as “Nothing serious,” the sort of detail you only receive from NHL coaches. And while it’s good news, Hartman should be back soon, his departure from the top line offers the Wild an opportunity to get a good look at… Frederick Gaudreau as the first-line center. Boring. Nothing against Gaudreau, but the coaching staff’s decision on the first day of camp could be the sign of a troubling trend continuing for the Wild’s roster construction. Instead of seeing the true potential of his team, Evason seems to once again lean on the dependable veteran to keep the team afloat rather than taking the chance to truly see how much his team can grow. Yes, it’s only the first day, but that spot should belong to Marco Rossi. Because if not now, when? The preseason is the perfect time for a coach to tinker with their lines and try things. Evason’s decision to elevate Gaudreau shows he is in peak middle-of-the-season mode. When things are out of order in the regular season, coaches lean on veteran experience to survive until overtime to secure that one point in the standings. But it’s late September. Now is the time to gauge just how high a ceiling your team has. It’s not the time to rip up your carpet to see how nice the flooring is. Even if that floor is a flashy French-Canadien brand of above-average quality hardwood, leave that for the middle of the season. Sure, there will be those who disagree. But giving Rossi the chance to play between Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello should be a no-brainer at this point, given the alternatives. Gaudreau is a capable fill-in for the top line, but we’ve seen this before. The heights in which he can take that line are extremely limited. He’s much better suited as the valuable Swiss Army knife he is: Entrenched on the third line and capable of sliding up in the lineup should a short-term solution be needed. Joel Eriksson Ek is a better option than Gaudreau. Still, he has seemingly found a home on a line between professional-golfer-turned-hockey-player Matt Boldy and fellow Swede Marcus Johansson. From a purely stylistic point, keeping Eriksson Ek there makes sense rather than elevating him. Eriksson Ek and Boldy work best as station-to-station players. They utilize their size and creativity in small spaces to exploit opposing teams in the offensive zone. Kaprizov and Zuccarello thrive on the rush and by pushing play through the neutral zone, which isn’t exactly Eriksson Ek’s calling card. However, the fit for Rossi is so perfect it’s difficult to imagine why Evason and Co. are so bent on the kid sludging along on the third line to start camp. Instead, they should play him with a pair of elite play drivers who would complement his playing style so well. While the young Austrian may not be as well-rounded as Gaudreau, his style undoubtedly would be a better match to Kaprizov and Zuccarello’s. We all know the result if Gaudreau plays well on the top line. He would provide dependable defensive play, but the two wingers would have to drive the offense. However, if this is the year Rossi truly takes the next step in his career and plants his flag as an everyday NHLer, the potential he brings to the team’s best line is unmatched. And that’s how the Wild’s coaching staff should view this preseason. They shouldn’t be testing what they already know about their team. Instead, it’s time we get a good, long look at just how far this team could potentially go.

It's Marco Rossi against the World. While not as well-attended as the Olympics, there is a solid amount of NHL talent at the IIHF World Championships. We all know about the number of Minnesota Wild players alone populating Teams USA and Sweden. Then you look at Team Canada, which boasts two 40-goal scorers in John Tavares and Jared McCann, and even Connor Bedard. Then there's Marco Rossi's Team Austria. It's not just that Rossi is the best player on Austria's roster. For all intents and purposes, he's the only one. Austria is churning out more high-level talent than ever. Rossi was the first drafted Austrian in 14 years in 2020 when he went ninth overall. Since then, Marco Kasper (No. 8 in 2022) and David Reinbacher (No. 5 in 2023) have joined him as top-10 picks. But neither player is competing at Worlds. However, Rossi and a collection of Austrian and Swiss league veterans are enough for Austria to make some noise. They're having their most impressive World Championship run in at least 20 years, or perhaps ever. Back in the 2004 Worlds, an 18-year-old Thomas Vanek led Austria to a 1-3-2 record. Vanek's Team Austria notched a win against France and drew against Canada and Switzerland. Not too shabby. Rossi's 2024 version of Team Austria is only 2-3-1, but the high points were historic for his country. Between 2005 and 2023, Austria went just 8-40-6 in World Championship play. Three of their wins came against B-tier European powerhouses like Czechia, Switzerland, and Slovakia, with the rest coming against Belarus, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, and Latvia. Their high point might have been taking Team USA to overtime in 2022. It started in the third period against Bedard and Team Canada, the New York Yankees of the international hockey world. Down 6-1 after the second period, Austria fought back with a flurry of five goals in the third period. Rossi was on the ice for each of Austria's final four goals, with none being bigger than his tying goal with 49 seconds remaining. Rossi's goal displayed several traits that made him successful with the Wild this season. There's the crafty defense, as he starts his play by snatching the puck from the Montreal Canadiens' Kaiden Guhle. Rossi showed off his nose for the net, not only getting the takeaway but finding it in a position to create a high-danger chance. Then there's the finishing that led to his 21-goal rookie year, roofing a backhander past Jordan Binnington. The game was historic in many ways. For example, it was the first time Austria had scored even three goals against Canada at the top level of World Championship competition. Had Austria completed the comeback (Tavares scored 15 seconds into overtime without Rossi touching the ice), it would have been the largest comeback in World Championship history. Rossi put his team on his back on his biggest stage yet, furthering his coming-out party with the Minnesota Wild this season. It won't come as any surprise to those who followed his comeback from myocarditis to the NHL or his summer of skipping family weddings to train to make the NHL last year, but you'd better believe that he cares. "In 50 years, I will still look back to this moment," he said to The Athletic's Chris Johnston. "I won't forget this one." Austria had more up their sleeve, following their effort against Canada with a 3-2 win against Team Finland. It was the country's first win against Finland in 11 tries at the World Championship level. "That we can beat [Finland] at the World Championship is the best thing that has happened in Austrian Hockey in a long time," said Austrian forward Benjamin Baumgartner. Rossi registered zero points but held Finland scoreless through a game-high 23 minutes and 40 seconds. That's been Rossi's role for Austria: a heavy workload with shutdown minutes. Rossi is playing 18:59 per night, which is higher than any of his teammates, including Austria's defensemen. He ranks eighth among forwards in the World Championships, with most of those ahead of him being from similarly small countries. Throwing Rossi against the best the world has to offer (at least, among non-NHL playoff teams) has produced results for Austria that go beyond Rossi's goal and two assists in five games. Through the World Championships, Austria is outscoring their opposition 9-2 with Rossi on the ice. The rest of the team? They've been outscored by a margin of 11-21. At 5-on-5, Rossi's given Austria a clean sheet (five goals for, zero against), with the rest of the team falling behind 8-13. Again, we're seeing a continuation of Rossi's regular-season success on a big stage. Rossi finished the season tied for sixth on the team with a +5 goal differential at 5-on-5 (44 goals for, 39 against). Without Rossi on the ice, Minnesota was out-gunned 114-124 at 5-on-5, a -10 differential. It's good news that there's no drop-off in these World Championship games, which mean so much to Austria. We don't have much in the way of a sample size for big games in Rossi's career. His only playoff experience since his days in the OHL (where he scored 6 goals and 22 points as a 16-year-old in the Memorial Cup playoffs) came in 2022-23. For the Iowa Wild, not Minnesota. Still, he produced a goal and an assist in two games against the Rockford IceHogs. Other than that, we have just 12 games of World Championship play dating back to last summer to gauge Rossi's big game experience. So far, all indications are that he has stepped up in these moments. Rossi has two goals and 12 points over the past two years, and his impact on scoring has been positive in both tournaments. In those 12 games, Austria outscores opponents 16-7 (8-3 at 5-on-5) on a team that is otherwise outscored by a whopping 14-43 margin (10-31 at 5-on-5). Unfortunately, you can't discuss this without mentioning the trade rumors that continue to surround Rossi this summer. Despite a Calder-caliber rookie year, the Wild allegedly believe Rossi is too small to fit their plans and are open to trading him to add size closer to June's NHL Draft. Is the front office watching these games? If so, they should be taking notes on what Rossi's doing to will Austria to relevance in a big tournament. Let's face it: The Wild are the Team Austria of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Since Minnesota entered the NHL in 2000--01, the team is 34-62, a .354 winning percentage. Only the Winnipeg Jets (.340) have been worse. When you're looking up at the Columbus Blue Jackets, that's about as embarrassing as things get. One big reason is that Minnesota has historically lacked players who can elevate their game in the postseason. Not-that-fun fact: 19 games of Kirill Kaprizov is enough to land him fourth all-time in postseason goals during franchise history. When healthy, we've seen Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek emerge as difference-making-type players. But no team gets deep in the playoffs by stopping at two. More must emerge, and we're seeing promising signs from Rossi on the international stage. Rossi's not the only Wild player performing well at Worlds. Matt Boldy has five goals and 12 points in six games for Team USA. Eriksson Ek has three goals and four points for Team Sweden. Heck, Marcus Johansson somehow has five goals and nine points for Sweden -- as many points as he had in his final 38 regular-season games this year. With all due respect to them, though, there's a big difference between being a (very good) cog in the machines of Teams USA and Sweden and being the sole NHL player on a team that regularly fights not to be relegated. What Rossi's doing for Austria takes a ton of skill and heart to pull off, and it's the kind of big-game mentality that the Wild can't afford to cast aside.

It's probably not telling any tales out of school to suggest that the Connor Bedard Calder Trophy Coronation will go off as planned in the coming weeks. Brock Faber and Marco Rossi put up some fight, but Bedard leading all rookies with 22 goals and 60 points in 66 games (with two games remaining) will likely be enough to seal it. That leaves Faber and Rossi, who've each had superb rookie seasons, to fight for who gets to be finalists. Faber is a presumptive favorite to finish in second place and perhaps the one player who has the national media hype to overtake Bedard. Rossi is second among rookies with 21 goals and fifth with 40 points (one game remaining), and he might ride his stellar 5-on-5 stats to a finalist spot. There will be decent competition for those finalist spots, with Luke Hughes and Logan Cooley making late pushes for their teams. But if Minnesota can get two rookies into the Calder finalists, what does that mean for the team long-term? Does it portend to greatness? Is that even something that happens? You'd think it's hard for two rookies on a team to be among the league's top three, given that there have been at least 30 teams in the NHL for the last 25 years or so. But teams have accomplished the feat during the Salary Cap Era. Here are the three times it's happened since 2005-06: 2013-14: Ondřej Palát (2nd) and Tyler Johnson (3rd) for the Tampa Bay Lightning 2008-09: Patrick Kane (1st) and Jonathan Toews (3rd) for the Chicago Blackhawks 2007-08: Evgeni Malkin (1st) and Jordan Staal (3rd) for the Pittsburgh Penguins You might first notice that these teams each won at least one Stanley Cup and went down as one of the defining teams of their decade. Moreover, those teams won their Cups with those specific players. Palat and Johnson won the 2019-20 and 2020-21 Cups with the Lightning. Kane and Toews won three Cups in Chicago, the first in 2009-10. Meanwhile, Malkin and Staal teamed up to bring Lord Stanley to Pittsburgh in 2008-09 before the Penguins traded Staal in the summer of 2012. Looking all the way back to the '90s, we can find two more examples. Chris Drury took the trophy in the 1998-99 Calder voting, and Milan Hejduk finished third while playing for the Colorado Avalanche. They won the Stanley Cup in the 2000-01 season. The only time in anything close to recent history where this pattern hasn't worked was in 2001-02 when the Atlanta Thrashers took the top two Calder spots with Dany Heatley (1st) and Ilya Kovalchuk (2nd). Chalk that up to being an expansion team during a time when that was a bad thing. But hey, four Cup winners out of five is a strong track record for teams that graduated two Calder finalists in the same season. If Faber and Rossi can accomplish this feat, the Wild would seem to be on the fast track to a Stanley Cup. Interestingly enough, three of these four Cup winners didn't even graduate their best player in that season. Kane or Toews (you can pick which) was Chicago's main event. But Pittsburgh? Malkin was a generational player, but he was second fiddle to Sidney Crosby. The Lightning duo ended up being (at least) less important than Victor Hedman, Nikita Kucherov, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Brayden Point, and Steven Stamkos to their team's success. Hejduk and Drury were valuable pieces of Colorado's 2000-01 team, but Joe Sakic drove winning. Having that infusion of young talent filling in around an MVP-caliber player seems to be a winning formula, and Kirill Kaprizov appears to be that kind of player. No one can say he didn't carry his weight in the second half of the season, piling up 37 goals and 70 points over his last 45 games. If he can put a full season anywhere in that neighborhood, he'll be that MVP-caliber player. Speaking of Kaprizov, he's a former Calder Trophy winner. If Faber can steal that Calder Trophy from under Bedard's golden hands, that would give Minnesota two Calder Trophy winners in four years. Only two teams have had multiple Calder winners in a five-year span during the Salary Cap Era. One of them is Colorado, where Gabriel Landeskog (2011-12) and Nathan MacKinnon (2013-14) received the honor. They finally won a Stanley Cup together in the 2020-21 season (with the help of 2019-20 Calder winner Cale Makar). Then there's the Florida Panthers, where Jonathan Huberdeau (2012-13) and Aaron Ekblad (2014-15) took home the trophy. They didn't win a Cup together, but Ekblad was a cornerstone for the Cup Finalist 2022-23 Panthers, while Florida traded Huberdeau for another cornerstone in Matthew Tkachuk. It sounds silly to get analytical about a concept as simple as "having young talent is good." But in a season where Wild fans have precious little to get amped up about, the feats of Faber and Rossi are genuinely exciting and something that Minnesota can build upon. With Matt Boldy in tow and more talent on the way, we could be witnessing something special in the State of Hockey.

Did you hear that Minnesota hockey faithful? The collective sigh of exasperation from all of us after the Wild were mathematically eliminated from the 2023-24 playoffs? It's been an interesting season, to say the least. Injuries to key players. Average goaltending. Raised eyebrow signings in the offseason. A winless record against the top three teams in the Central. A coaching change. The inexplicable decision to leave Jesper Wallstedt in his first NHL game, where he gave up seven goals. The season hasn’t been a complete loss, though. Marat Khusnutdinov joined the team after signing his entry-level contract, and everyone cheered after each faceoff win in his first game with the team. Vladislav Firstov rejoined the club and is currently playing in Iowa. Riley Heidt is tearing it up in the WHL with 117 points in 66 games. Liam Ohgren signed and is also in Iowa. On Wednesday, the club promoted him to St. Paul. Danila Yurov had 49 points in 62 games in the KHL this season. Will we see him in the Wild’s development and tryouts this summer? I hope so. Wallstedt got his first win, a shutout, against the Chicago Blackhawks. He’s the first Wild goaltender to have a shutout for their first win. Marco Rossi also showed that he belongs in the NHL. All good things, indeed. As I was doing research for this article, I noticed something. I’m wondering if anyone else noticed this. With all the consternation from the hockey faithful around those eyebrow-raising signings this past offseason, I saw that the Marcus Foligno, Ryan Hartman, and Freddy Gaudreau contracts switched from a no-move clause (NMC) to a limited no-trade clause (LNTC) in 2025? Actually, Gaudreau’s contract is entirely an LNTC. Interesting, no? Because that is the first season after the vaulted cap hell, contracts fall off the books. Hmmm. I feel my faith in Bill Guerin returning. Was he thinking, Well, now that we get $14 million in cap space back, I could also get another $10.1 million by moving those three guys? The Wild have 11 players under contract for the 2025-26 season. They have $54 million in contracts, and we know the cap is going up next season, let’s say to $85 million. If we have the same cap in 2025 and Guerin moves those 3 contracts, Minnesota would only have $43.9 million in contracts on the books with 8 players. That would give them $41.1 in available cap to spend. Also, by moving those 3 contracts, the gates open up for the kids to come in and fill open slots. Perfect! If what people are saying is true, the Wild could potentially field a team whose first three lines are loaded with top 6 forwards. And a 4th line with third/fourth/specialists? Who wouldn’t want that? It’s called depth, right? Will it be easy to keep the group together? No. That's the downside of having a prospect pool filled with talent. If anything, a good GM can parlay that talent into wise deals while retaining depth. That’s why they get paid the big bucks. However, we could see a forward group of Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek, Boldly, Rossi, Khusnutdinov, Yurov, Firstov, Heidt, Mason Shaw, Ohgren, Sammy Walker, and Rasmus Kumpulainen. On defense, the Wild would likely have Jared Spurgeon, Jonas Brodin, Brock Faber, Zach Bogosian, Dakota Mermis, and Carson Lambos, with Wallstedt and Gustavsson in net. Kaprizov and Rossi need extensions, and they need to pay Faber. Rossi has done everything the Wild have asked of him, including missing his sister's wedding. Now reward him. Signing Faber and Rossi means the Wild would have 8 of the 18 players mentioned above under contract. Could we get the remaining 10 signed? I think so. Kaprizov’s extension wouldn’t hit the books until the 2026 season when Zach Parise and Ryan Suter come off the books, and the Wild get an additional $10 million in cap space. Faber could command a comparable contract to Cale Makar or Quinn Hughes in the $9 to $10 million range. Rossi could get something like what Boldy got, the $5 to $7 million range. That would be $17 million to sign Faber and Rossi of the $41 million, leaving $24 million for 10 to 12 more players. About a $2 million average per player? I think Guerin could do it. There’s also the question of Wallstedt. He’s under a minor league contract through next year. If he blossoms in the 2024-25 season, which I think he will, what kind of money would he command? He’s a restricted free agent in 2025, so the Wild have a little control there. However, a fair contract over 5 years would be the best-case scenario. That would take him to his 28th birthday, around the time that goalies really come into their own and command more money, and in 2030, the Wild should also be able to do that. So, friends, I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief rather than exasperation. The future is bright in Minnesota. The Wild’s depth will make them a contender. Let’s enjoy it.

The Minnesota Wild are eliminated from the playoffs and playing out the string for the next four games while moving their focus to the future. After the Colorado Avalanche stomped out the last embers of the Wild's playoff hopes, The Athletic's Joe Smith asked coach John Hynes what was needed to make up the gap between them and the Central Division's playoff teams. Presumably, this is both head-to-head as well as in the standings. Hynes laid out the goals for next year. "Some size, some speed, some depth," he answered. "When you look at the top teams in the Central, they're big teams, they're fast teams, they're deep teams. And they play a heavy game." That sounds oddly like the kind of team Bill Guerin tried to build in Minnesota. "I think it's simple here: We're just not a pretty team," he told the media back in October 2022. "When we don't play hard, heavy, physical... we struggle. And when we are, we're good." Dean Evason, their former coach, preached the virtues of banging down low and getting hammered. Minnesota could play that way because they had the personnel to do it. Joel Eriksson Ek and Marcus Foligno formed the core of that identity, but they had plenty of help. Jordan Greenway, Nico Sturm, and Brandon Duhaime were all big-bodied forwards who skated well, and contributed to the banging and getting hammered in the bottom-six while Minnesota's stars shone. As the squeeze of the Zach Parise and Ryan Suter buyouts intensified, though, size was the first thing Guerin threw overboard to stay under budget. Minnesota traded Sturm to Colorado at the trade deadline in 2022, where he helped the Avs win a Stanley Cup. The next season, Guerin flipped Greenway to Buffalo for a second-round pick that became Riley Heidt. And once again, the Wild shipped size to Colorado in Duhaime at March's trade deadline. Eriksson Ek and Foligno are still around, yes, and Ryan Hartman and Kirill Kaprizov will mix it up despite not being the biggest players. But that identity of heavy hockey, molded by and in the image of former, old-school power forwards like Guerin and Evason? That's gone. It's gone, and more importantly, isn't coming back. The Wild don't have the cap space to add size on the trade or free agent market. Nor do they have a prospect pool that is equipped to replace players like Greenway and Sturm. Minnesota's top prospects -- Danila Yurov, Liam Öhgren, Heidt, and Marat Khusnutdinov -- all fall in between the 5-foot-11 to 6-foot-1 range. Big enough, but hardly the imposing team the Wild were two years ago. It's easy to be a fatalist about Minnesota's lack of size. Looking at the NHL's average height and weight by team shows the Vegas Golden Knights at the top of those, and Minnesota way down in last place. Vegas is a lot better than Minnesota, so size mattering checks out. Until you spend about 15 seconds looking a touch deeper. Look at that, the Cup-contending Avalanche are 28th in the NHL in average weight, just two pounds above the Wild. Their Central Division rivals, the playoff-bound Nashville Predators, who've eaten Minnesota's lunch for the past three years, are 24th. The going-nowhere New York Islanders and the cellar-dwelling Montreal Canadiens are the second and fourth-heaviest teams in the league. If Colorado and Nashville play heavy -- and they do -- it doesn't seem like size is the main component in doing so. That's good news for the Wild, but not if they go out and try to chase the size they lost. Not if they try to impose their old identity on this new club. What's Minnesota's identity now? Nominally, it's that hard-working, physical style, but again, they arguably don't have the personnel to embrace that anymore. More importantly, that hard-working/physical style shown by someone like Hartman reads differently to the referees. Minnesota's accrued the fourth-most penalty minutes in the NHL -- not bad for the smallest team in the league! -- and that's because players like Hartman have a reputation for reckless play. That turns heavy play into a liability pretty fast. So what's left? The Wild are going to have to reorient their team around offensive punch to succeed in the future. They have one of the most lethal top power play units in the NHL with Kaprizov, Eriksson Ek, Mats Zuccarello, Matt Boldy, and Brock Faber. That top line of Kaprizov, Eriksson Ek, and Matt Boldy is good enough to be an identity in itself, in the way that Brad Marchand, Patrice Bergeron, and David Pastrnak set the tone for the Boston Bruins for many seasons. Their incoming wave of prospects may not be the biggest or fastest crop of players, but they fit into the high-octane offensive mold of Minnesota's top players. Marco Rossi is 5-foot-9, but gets to the net like Eriksson Ek and has 21 goals (18 at 5-on-5) to show for it. Heidt is the kind of smart, heady distributor Zuccarello is today. Yurov surpassed Kaprizov in scoring as a 20-year-old in the KHL. Öhgren brings a combination of size, possession-driving, and dual-threat offensive ability that can remind you of Boldy. If Minnesota can successfully bring those players along in a relatively quick fashion and have them be a 1B unit for their power play, they have a chance to have elite special teams. It can't hurt to have that influx of offensive skill at 5-on-5, either. There's no shame in the Wild diverting from the identity of those Guerin/Evason teams. There might even be an upside to it. We've seen those Wild teams built on playing heavy hockey flame out in the opening round of the playoffs several times. How high was their ceiling? What did Guerin-ball get them, exactly? The Wild are at the start of a turnover that will be intensified as more of their most talented prospects start filtering onto the team. It's not time to impose an old, outdated identity on them, but to find a new mantra that adapts to their strengths.

In the summer of 2021, all eyes were on Kirill Kaprizov's contract situation. The Calder Trophy winner just completed his first (and only) year of his entry-level contract, putting up 27 goals and 51 points in 55 games. His reward was unprecedented for a player with such little NHL experience, a five-year, $45 million deal that drew the ire of some of the league's biggest-diapered stars. Was it the best contract that the Minnesota Wild signed that offseason? Perhaps. Kaprizov just hit the 40-goal mark for the third time in that deal's first three seasons. But the pact Minnesota made with Joel Eriksson Ek (eight years, $42 million) might be even more bang for their buck. A No. 1 center in the Ryan O'Reilly mold for a lower cap hit than, say, Andrew Copp? That's working out well for the Wild. That lesson might be instructive as Minnesota embarks on this offseason with both of their Calder Trophy-caliber rookies, Brock Faber and Marco Rossi, entering the final seasons of their ELCs and thus being eligible for extensions. Faber is almost assuredly going to break the bank, even with his NHL experience unable to exceed 83 games before this summer. Still, Jake Sanderson signed an eight-year extension worth $64.4 million in September, and Owen Power followed that up a month later with a seven-year, $58.45 million deal of his own. The two top young defensemen had 77 and 87 games under their belts at the time of their signings, respectively. Meanwhile, Faber's rookie season not only exceeds Sanderson and Power in point totals, but his production isn't just good-for-a-rookie. It's simply good. Ryan Suter, Matt Dumba, and Brent Burns are the only Wild defensemen with more points than Faber's 43. That's right, his 43 points are currently tied with captain Jared Spurgeon's career-high. Faber's cap hit will start with an "8," and that might be a hometown discount. All eyes will be on that contract situation this summer. It'll be a great day in Minnesota once the Wild ink Faber to a long-term extension. But the value play for the Wild is to try and do another Eriksson Ek-type home run contract with Rossi. Think about it: When did Minnesota extend Eriksson Ek? Right when he began to deliver on his promise as a first-round pick in 2015. He broke out with 19 goals and 30 points in a COVID-shortened 56-game season. Crucially, Eriksson Ek wasn't negotiating his contract coming off the 26-goal, 49-point season he had the following year or his 23-goal, 61-point campaign of 2022-23. That's the sweet spot, and Rossi is in that same zone. A bout with myocarditis and a slow NHL start (one point in his first 21 NHL games) cast doubt on his ability to make it at this level. Instead, Rossi put those doubts to bed with a 21-goal, 38-point rookie season. How much better can he get, seeing as he only turns 23 in September? He's already second on the team with 18 5-on-5 goals, one behind Kaprizov and one ahead of Matt Boldy. His 32 5-on-5 points are third among Wild players, behind Kaprizov and Boldy and one ahead of Eriksson Ek. If he has consistent linemates next season and a more prominent role, can he hit 30 goals next year? How many more assists can he add? More importantly, why wait to find out before paying him? Minnesota always has the option to kick the can down the road with a shorter-term "bridge deal." The idea with that kind of contract is to squeeze out some cheaper years from a player while dangling the carrot of a bigger payday. The Wild did that to great effect with Kevin Fiala in 2019, garnering lots of value with a two-year, $6 million deal. Any GM would take 43 goals and 94 points in 114 games for a $3 million cap hit. But when it came time to pay Fiala, they felt they couldn't afford him. Since they got Faber in return for the ensuing trade, it's hard to say it didn't work out. Still, Minnesota's secondary scoring hasn't been the same since. Maybe the Wild felt that carrot was necessary to motivate Fiala (though he does have two straight 70-point seasons in LA), but that isn't the case for Rossi. It's hard to question the commitment of a kid who'll miss his sister's wedding to do skating drills. Or the drive of a 22-year-old who parks his 5-foot-9 frame in front of the net on a nightly basis. Minnesota can count on Rossi to maximize his potential. Still, they don't have to pay for that maximized potential if they get ahead of this contract situation the way they did with Eriksson Ek. Rossi doesn't have the clean contract comparables that Faber has in Sanderson and Power, but we can gauge the market by taking a quick look at young centers who've signed long-term extensions with their teams since the summer of 2022. Josh Norris signed an eight-year, $63.6 million ($7.95M cap hit) extension in July 2022. Norris was 23, coming off a 35-goal, 55-point season. Tim Stützle, the third overall pick in Rossi's 2020 Draft, inked an eight-year, $66.8 million ($8.35M cap hit) deal in September 2022. Stützle was 20, coming off a 22-goal, 58-point sophomore season. Dylan Cozens cashed in during his age-21 season, signing a seven-year, $49.7 million ($7.1M cap hit) contract as he was heading to 31 goals and 68 points. Rossi doesn't quite have those bonafides, which probably pushes his long-term number somewhere in the $6 million range. Perhaps something in the ballpark of the eight-year, $50 million ($6.5M cap hit) pact two-way center Anthony Cirelli signed in July 2022, right around his 25th birthday. That might seem like a lot for a player with one full NHL season under his belt. In most cases, though, the sticker shock fades away as the cap rises and the players perform. Rossi is scratching the surface of his potential. If he continues to deliver, that cap hit becomes a bargain quickly. Even at a seemingly unreasonable $7 million, Rossi would create a cap advantage for Minnesota. With five years remaining on Eriksson Ek's contract, Minnesota would have two top-six centers locked up for a total of $12.25 million for the next five seasons. Anything lower would only add to the bang for the buck of that one-two punch and the money Minnesota could allocate toward the wings or defense. The starting point with Rossi this summer is with a center who is competing for a Calder Trophy in a year where star rookies like Bedard, Faber, Luke Hughes, Logan Cooley, Adam Fantilli, and Leo Carlsson are making their debuts. It doesn't get any cheaper from here on out. Why wait?

The Minnesota Wild entered Tuesday eight points out of a playoff spot with only 20 games left to make up ground. Depending on who you ask, their playoff odds hover somewhere around 8% to 16%. There are just three days left until the March 8 trade deadline. Minnesota's pre-season extensions have repeatedly drawn heat all season long, including from Hockey Wilderness. It's almost a dead horse to keep talking about it, except this is the exact moment where the extensions hurt the franchise the most. The Wild would be in an ideal position to be sellers at the trade deadline if they could move major pieces in Mats Zuccarello, Ryan Hartman, and Marcus Foligno. Instead, they're missing the biggest opportunity for a fire sale since Tobias Fünke blew his big audition. To properly assess the damage of these moves, we have to answer one question: What could Minnesota have gotten in return for their players? Are fans in the State of Hockey overrating what their home team's once-pending UFAs could fetch on the trade market? Or did the Wild miss out on a massive opportunity? As of Tuesday morning, the NHL has only had five trades approaching the deadline. Given that the Wild's biggest pieces would be forwards, the trades for defensemen Chris Tanev and Ilya Lyubushkin are more or less irrelevant to Minnesota's potential situation. A third trade sent Kurtis MacDermid, a depth forward, to the Colorado Avalanche. That leaves us with the following two trades: Calgary Flames send Elias Lindholm to the Vancouver Canucks for Andrei Kuzmenko, prospects Hunter Brzustewicz and Joni Jurmo, a first-round pick (2024), and a fourth-round pick (2024, conditional) Montreal Canadiens send Sean Monahan to the Winnipeg Jets for a first-round pick (2024) and a third-round pick (2027, conditional) Notably, those two players are centers, which carry a premium price compared to wingers. Leading up to the Lindholm trade, he scored nine goals and 32 points in 49 games. However, he averaged 28 goals and 69 points per 82 games since the start of the 2021-22 season. Monahan had an opposite trajectory with a bounce-back season, scoring 13 goals and 35 points over 49 games this season after averaging 16 goals and 43 points per 82 games over the past three seasons. These are, almost definitely, the two most desirable centers on the trade market this season. Looking at The Athletic's latest Trade Deadline Big Board, the top options include the Anaheim Ducks' Adam Henrique (18 goals, 42 points in 60 games), the Seattle Kraken's Alex Wennberg (9 goals, 25 points in 60 games), and uh... Mikael Granlund? It's hard to look at that group and not think Hartman wouldn't be a premium asset. Hartman would be a blend of the recent goal-scoring of Monahan (15 goals, 33 points in 57 games) and Lindholm's decent track record (27 goals, 56 points per 82 games since 2021-22). Moreover, he has that gritty edge that teams want in the playoffs, and his $1.7 million cap hit is extremely movable. As virtually the last center standing, we can confidently predict the Wild could get a 2024 first-rounder and a guaranteed (that is, non-conditional) third-rounder in the future. For the sake of the exercise, let's say 2025. We haven't seen a trade for a bonafide scoring winger yet, so we'll have to speculate what a return for Zuccarello might have looked like. But a big reason we haven't seen such a trade is that not many are available. Jake Guentzel (22 goals, 52 points in 50 games) is the big name available, with the caveat that he's injured for at least another week, reducing the number of games a team can get from the pending UFA. Frank Vatrano (29 goals, 48 points in 61 games) could be sought-after. Historically, he's a 20-ish-goal player who is benefitting because someone has to score goals in Anaheim. Besides that, teams' options on the rental market include a slightly-used Vladimir Tarasenko (17 goals, 41 points in 57 games), Anthony Duclair (14 goals, 23 points in 23 games), or Max Pacioretty (3 goals, 15 points in 25 games). Yay? Zuccarello (11 goals, 50 points in 52 games) might not be tracking to put up a third-straight 20-goal season, but he's a point-per-game player who can run a power play extremely well. With nearly 100 games of playoff experience in his career (18 goals, 55 points in 96 games), he also has the kind of postseason resume GMs like to have in the room. We're talking an easy first-round pick in 2024 here. Let's model our guess after last year's Tyler Bertuzzi trade, with a conditional fourth-rounder thrown in with that first. Then there's Foligno, who would get the attention of anyone who wants a top-shelf bottom-six winger. Foligno's brand of defense and toughness is unusual and valuable, even if he only has 9 goals and 20 points on the season. The Wild got second and fifth-rounders for Jordan Greenway, a lesser (but younger and team-controlled) winger in that vein. A healthy Foligno would probably fetch a first-rounder. But given that he's banged up, Minnesota may have to settle for second- and third-round picks for this one. Let's put the second-rounder in 2024 and the third in 2026. Now let's look at where the Wild stand now in draft capital, as laid out by CapFriendly: The Wild have preserved their draft picks pretty well. They're missing just one pick in the first three rounds over the next three seasons, a 2024 third-rounder from last year's Marcus Johansson trade. Having their first and second-rounders in the next three years will help rebuild a farm system that dipped slightly after Marco Rossi and Brock Faber graduated to the NHL. But let's look at how much Minnesota might have left on the table. It's safe to say, and maybe conservative when it comes to Foligno's value, that the Wild missed out on two first-round picks for the 2024 draft. We can guess they also cost themselves a second and third-rounder in 2025 and 2026, respectively. Picks like that have the chance to pick up significant value. Imagine if the Wild had another mid-20s pick last year, for example. They could have made a similar move to their 2022 draft, where they purposely skipped over Danila Yurov on their list, only to take him six slots later to try getting him and Liam Öhgren. In that case, maybe could have felt comfortable taking the smaller, skilled winger Gabe Perreault at 21, betting that longer-term project center Charlie Stramel would be available a bit later. That's the kind of flexibility the Wild are punting on in 2024. The Wild have a growing need to address their blueline prospect depth at the high end. With three first-round picks, the Wild, who are tracking for a late top-10 pick in this year's draft, could take the best player available early, then focus on stocking up on defense once or twice in the 20s. And no one should doubt the value of an extra second- or third-round pick after the Wild snagged Riley Heidt at the end of the second round last season. We can't ever know what Minnesota lost in terms of opportunity cost with those extensions. The butterfly effect means we also won't know how decisions would ripple out from the Wild being able to get a giant haul via a fire sale this week. But we saw how the outlook of the franchise changed for the better from 2020 to 2022, when the Wild amassed extra picks to get players like Rossi, Marat Khusnutdinov, Jesper Wallstedt, Carson Lambos, Yurov, Öhgren, and more. Minnesota had a chance to run it back, and all they had to do was be patient. The path they chose might be more costly than we can ever tell.

When you hear the media talking about Matt Boldy, you might not realize they're talking about one of the Minnesota Wild's best players. Boldy dominated the Vegas Golden Knights with a three-point game that was the difference in Monday's 5-3 win. What was the story of the night? "Some nights, the 31-goal scorer from a year ago isn't noticeable enough," Joe Smith wrote in The Athletic, noting a poor performance in Chicago last week. "This was the kind of engaged and bold play [from] Boldy the Wild are going to need if they want to climb back into the playoff picture." Smith was far from alone. Dane Mizutani penned an article titled "When will Matt Boldy realize he can be the best player on the ice?" in the Pioneer Press. The tenor of SKOR North host Judd Zulgad's analysis was also wanting more. "Where has this performance been all season long?" Zulgad wondered in a Monday video. "Matt Boldy can play like this every night, so why isn't he?" Even the team-friendly broadcast was almost backhanded when marveling at Boldy's performance. Bally Sports North color commentator Wes Walz noted on the broadcast, "I think he's naturally a pass-first guy... and I think he's really had to battle the mental side of the game to find this area of his game to be a shoot-first guy." Then Walz mentions Boldy's salary. "When you're making $7 million, you're paid to score goals, not make passes," Walz concluded. Nobody is denying that Boldy doesn't have games like he did in Chicago that aren't up to his standards. That's a universal experience among hockey players, though. So, what's up with the hyper-fixation on Boldy's shortcomings? Focusing on the frustrating elements of his game runs the risk of missing the what-we're-pretty-sure-is-a-bear from the trees. In any big-picture sense, Boldy is indisputably a great player. We can start with the scoring, where Boldy is one of the NHL's premier "dual threats." With 18 points and 20 assists in 45 games, Boldy is on track for a second-straight 30-goal season with 63 points in 75 games. Specifically, his status as a "dual threat" puts him in rarified air. He's one of 33 players this season to average 0.40 goals and assists per game, per Stathead. The idea that Boldy doesn't score enough goals also doesn't hold up. If Boldy hits the 30-goal mark this season, he'll join another exclusive club. He'll become one of just 20 players since the 2004-05 lockout to score 30 goals multiple times before their age-23 season. Players who did it twice include Phil Kessel, Brayden Point, Jonathan Toews, Anze Kopitar, Eric Staal, and Kyle Connor. And look at some of the great players that didn't make this list! It's pretty impressive if Boldy can accomplish something Nathan MacKinnon, Matthew Tkachuk, Mikko Rantanen, Tyler Seguin, and John Tavares had ample opportunity to but couldn't crack. For someone that talented who racks up such strong scoring numbers, you'd forgive them somewhat for not driving play or being solid defensively. The thing is, though, that doesn't describe Boldy at all. Line up Boldy against anyone on the Wild you'd like; he's probably a stronger all-around player. Do we want to start with Kirill Kaprizov? Great, let's start with Kaprizov. Kaprizov has the offensive advantage, of course. The gap between being in the 95th percentile and the 90th on offense is significant. But so is the gap between being in the 42nd percentile and the 79th on defense. In terms of two-way play, you've got to give the edge to Boldy. Even Joel Eriksson Ek, the platonic ideal of a two-way hockey player, can't quite reach Boldy's lofty standard this season. Eriksson Ek's defense is affected by taking it on the chin on the penalty kill, which may or may not be his fault. Still, Boldy has the decided offensive advantage. Look at their even-strength defensive numbers, and they're virtually identical. It's hard not to give the edge to Boldy here. Perhaps the Wild fans and media are impatient and want Boldy to have a bona fide breakout season. Boldy scored 0.83 points per season as a rookie, then 0.78 last year, leading to the 0.84 clip he has now. If that's the case, we must remember we're talking about a player who's still only 22 years old. When we looked at the possibility of a monster year from Boldy in September, we highlighted 11 comparables to Boldy entering his age-22 season. Only one (David Pastrnak) made the jump to a 90-plus-point season at 22. Sasha Barkov took until 23 to hit that level, while Elias Pettersson and Matthew Tkachuk didn't accomplish it until they turned 24. We might be measuring Boldy by the same stick we measure Kaprizov, perhaps one of the rare players in the NHL who makes a superstar impact almost nightly. But is that fair right now? Remember, Kaprizov didn't enter the league until he turned 23. Would we have had the same conversations if we saw his growing pains in the NHL instead of drooling over his KHL games from afar? We'll never know, but it is possible. Then how should we compare Boldy's progression? Why not with a player who plays a Boldy-type game: A dual-threat with massive two-way impact at a similar age? If we do that, we can see a dead-ringer for Boldy in a 23-year-old Mark Stone. That's the track Boldy is on. Early in his career, Stone wasn't the borderline Hart Trophy candidate he later became. Instead, he was a reliable 60- to 65-point player with absurd defensive value. Then he enters his age-25 season and scores 379 points in his next 388 games, even after injuries took a toll on him, complete with Selke Trophy-quality defense. It's understandable why someone would watch a 6-foot-3 player with the skill Boldy possesses put up a clunker in Chicago and think How the hell does that happen? But it's incredibly difficult to be as good as Boldy is in the aggregate without being an impactful player regularly. Let's not have an occasional frustration that he isn't yet in his final form distract us from the fact that Boldy is one of the most exciting young players the State of Hockey has ever seen.

Talk about putting a damper on a great day. Every year, Hockey Day Minnesota is celebrated across the state of hockey with a fever. The game is forever synonymous with the state's culture and people, perhaps second only to the State Fair. It’s a day to celebrate all ages of play, as youth and high school boys and girls games are televised from sunrise to sunset. It’s tough to see the scenes from Warroad this weekend and not immediately harken back to the days of being a child and rounding up your friends for a game of shinny on the local ODR. The energy was palpable all day. That is until the attention turned indoors and a Minnesota Wild team clawing for a chance at the playoffs. For a second consecutive game, the state’s NHL team blew a third-period lead at home, this time to the 17-30-2 Anaheim Ducks. The lack of defensive discipline was akin to an in-house squirt game played at a rink near you that morning. But the loss, their first on Hockey Day Minnesota in eight years, wasn’t the only damper to the end of an otherwise fantastic day of celebrating the game of hockey. The disappointment started at puck drop, with the lights shining bright inside Xcel Energy Center and a full crowd of 19,000+ on their feet. It felt like a normal, regular-season game. Because it was inside. After a day full of beautiful hockey on the shores of Lake Baudette, the penultimate game being played indoors just felt flat. That got me thinking: what if the Wild and the NHL moved Minnesota’s annual Hockey Day Minnesota game to the outdoors, joining the rest of the state in a days-long event of hockey in the frigid Minnesota climate? What if Hockey Day Minnesota culminated every year outside at Target Field, with 40,000+ Minnesotans bundled up and enjoying the game the way in the traditional sense that special day is supposed to invoke? That would be a fun tradition I think most Minnesota fans would welcome. Moving the annual Wild game to the outdoors would tie the whole day together – hockey being played outdoors across all ages, from the youngest hockey players to the pros. But is it possible? Likely not. The NHL tends to get in its own way repeatedly, so they'd meet a slam-dunk idea with resistance. Some of that reluctance to change is understandable but not impossible to overcome. Before getting into the benefits of such an idea, let’s debunk some of the most obvious complaints that may come from the league or the hockey world itself. It Wouldn’t Be Fair For Minnesota To Host An Outdoor Game Every Year Are we trying to make sure every game has equal footing? If we did, the NHL would have abandoned the current point structure and moved to the 3-point system years ago. Or are we genuinely attempting to grow the game? It should be the latter, and nothing helps grow the game like adding excitement to your product. Would it be completely fair for the Wild to host an outdoor game every year? Not really. But it also wasn’t fair to have Minnesota and three other teams have their schedules disrupted this past Fall and travel overseas to play in Sweden. Yet everyone agrees those international games are crucial to the NHL and growing its fan base. The same can be said for moving the Wild’s Hockey Day Minnesota game outdoors every year. It’s probably not fair to have a new team each year travel to Minnesota and play an outdoor game against a team with more experience playing in the elements. Still, the construction of these outdoor rinks and maintenance of the ice is better now than it’s ever been. The advantage would be minimal. Besides, you can mitigate some of that unfairness by having the Wild host an Eastern Conference team every year, so the game would affect playoff seeding less. The Minnesota Winter Climate Won’t Allow It Potential climate issues won’t take long to move past, but they still need to be addressed. Yes, Minnesota winters can occasionally be brutal. But most days, the cold isn’t so bad an outdoor game would need to be canceled. Some Hockey Day Minnesota events have been in some cold temperatures, but not cold enough to cancel any games. It’s hard to imagine an NHL game not being played when youth athletes can play through it. We’ve already seen the Wild play in sub-zero temps in a packed stadium. In the 16-year history of Hockey Day Minnesota, only once was it moved indoors due to the weather -- and that was in 2012, when the day was too warm. You wouldn’t have that problem with the technology available to the NHL. In 2014, they played a game at Dodger Stadium when the game-time temperature was a balmy 62 degrees. The issue of the weather would be almost non-existent. In the highly unlikely event the game can’t be played outdoors, the league could implement a contingency plan. It’s Too Many Outdoor Games Having too many outdoor games makes sense for a regular NHL fan. It’s the reason the NHL has been reluctant to add more outdoor games to the schedule. They want to maintain the uniqueness of the Winter Classic and only add one or two Stadium Series games each season. But ultimately, those outdoor games only get exhausting when they are on national TV. There's no reason to put the Hockey Day Minnesota game on TNT or ESPN. The idea would be to keep it regional for Minnesota sports fans. Why? Because such a game would only be special to the people it’s meant for – Minnesotans. It’s our day. Hockey Day Minnesota was not created to spread the sport to other parts of the NHL world. It was designed to celebrate a cherished pastime of our great state. Would adding a yearly outdoor game in Minnesota ruin the potential for the Wild to host another Winter Classic? Perhaps. But after how the first one went, maybe that’s not such a bad idea. There's probably more debate to be had over the possibility of moving the Minnesota Wild game outdoors. But we can easily expunge most of those opinions in opposition to such an idea. It just makes too much sense not to do it. The largest reason is more revenue, the biggest motivator for the NHL. Moving the game outdoors would take an already profitable game for the Wild and triple, maybe even quadruple their revenue for the Hockey Day Minnesota game. The get-in price would probably not increase too much, but the increase from a capacity of 19,000 to 40,000, plus the increase in sponsorship abilities, would add quite a chunk of cash to the league’s hockey-related revenue. And that’s not only of benefit to the NHL, as they are continually in the top 10 in the NHL in revenue generated. Per the league rules, the top 10 teams in the league share a small percentage of those dollars with the bottom 10 teams in the league. Creating added revenue at the top only helps the health of the entire league. (Who knew trickle-down economics worked so well when sharing those profits was mandated, am I right?) While the added revenue makes it a near no-brainer for the NHL, it’s a move that needs to be made for the State of Hockey. It's deflating to watch every youth and high school game being played outdoors all day long is deflating, only to turn on the TV to see the Wild finishing the day indoors. It’s time to add the Minnesota Wild to the true tradition of Hockey Day Minnesota.

A long-running frustration with the Minnesota Wild is that they'd drafted Marco Rossi to be a No. 1 center, only to steadfastly refuse to let him play in that role. When the Wild needed center help in the 2021-22 season, they didn't bother calling Rossi up from the AHL, even after scoring 38 points in his first 34 games. The next season, Minnesota wouldn't audition a struggling Rossi on the top line, even to spark him. Not even a strong showing for the Iowa Wild or Joel Eriksson Ek's injury could get Rossi to displace Sam Steel from No. 1 center status. Once again this season, the Wild didn't have a bonafide top-six center to complement Eriksson Ek, but they started this season breaking Rossi in on the third line. For a player whose problem had been getting points, not playing defense, it was curious to see Rossi being paired with the not-particularly-dynamic Marcus Foligno or Freddy Gaudreau. But the Austrian center decided to do all the dynamic stuff himself, and Dean Evason finally placed him on a line to spark both Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy. Evason changed up that line, but while Mats Zuccarello swapped in for Boldy, Rossi stuck around. And thus, the Wild's top line was born. The Wild unveiled their new-look top line in Sweden, and they've spent the last two weeks or so looking every bit the part. Although their losing streak continued in Sweden and in the next two games, it's arguable this top line sparked Minnesota's turnaround. The Wild still found ways to lose, but they played their opponents much tougher. It's that foundation on which John Hynes was able to build Minnesota's four-game winning streak. And it's all come with Rossi anchoring the top line. Contrary to concerns about the Kaprizov, Rossi, and Zuccarello trio not having the collective size to stay together as a line, they're finding success and playing strong on the puck. As a unit, they've outscored their opponents 7-2 at 5-on-5 play. Their underlying numbers might not quite support that level of dominance, but it's very close. The Wild's new top line currently is controlling 61.2% of the expected goal (xG) share at 5-on-5 play, which ranks 20th among 161 forward lines with 50-plus minutes at 5-on-5. That sort of dominance compares very well to lines stuffed with top players, like Auston Matthews-Mitch Marner-Tyler Bertuzzi (62.5 xGF%), Tim Stützle-Claude Giroux-Mathieu Joseph (61.2 xGF%), and Jake Guentzel-Sidney Crosby-Bryan Rust (60.0 xGF%). Not bad company. Not surprisingly, this is the best of the Wild's forward lines this season by a healthy margin. Thanks to a rough start and injuries causing near-constant line shuffling, the Wild only have five forward units who've played 50 or more minutes together. Here's how they stack up: Kaprizov-Rossi-Zuccarello: 61.2 xGF% Boldy-Joel Eriksson Ek-Marcus Johansson: 55.8% Brandon Duhaime-Connor Dewar-Vinni Lettieri: 48.9% Kaprizov-Ryan Hartman-Zuccarello: 48.2% Foligno-Eriksson Ek-Patrick Maroon: 47.0% With Minnesota's poor start, it's not a shock that they've had lines on the wrong side of controlling play. What might raise some eyebrows is how the team's two worst lines contrast to Rossi's top line. The worst is an Eriksson Ek line stacked with size, in contrast to Rossi's 5-foot-10-and-under group. Next up is that same top line, with Hartman swapped out for Rossi. The latter is important because it highlights that Rossi is no passenger on this line. Not only does Rossi have seven points in eight games since Evason put this line together, but he's doing the work in the offensive zone that sets himself and his teammates up for success. Former Iowa Wild coach Tim Army once told Zone Coverage's Joe Bouley, "[Rossi's] going to do some things that bring you out of your seats, but I think the genius of his game is just he does so many things well, and he's so subtle." Army isn't wrong. Rossi excels in the "little things" that might go unnoticed. Watch Rossi closely, and you'll not only notice those "little things," but you'll also realize that Rossi makes those little things look spectacular. He's unbelievably strong on the puck, keeping plays alive by getting to lose pucks, winning puck battles, and keeping it on his stick through traffic and pressure. Speaking of traffic and pressure, Rossi takes on the qualities of other, bigger Wild centers in Eriksson Ek and Hartman by getting to the net regularly. Over 40% of his unblocked shot attempts (22 of 54) at 5-on-5 have come within 15 feet of the net. So have four of his seven goals, with another two coming within 21 feet. The 5-foot-9 center is being every bit as rugged as his bigger counterparts. In addition to the subtleties and determination in his game, Rossi benefits Kaprizov and Zuccarello by playing a lot like Kaprizov and Zuccarello. Corey Sznajder of All Three Zones has tracked microstats for seven Wild games throughout this season, and Rossi's skills have consistently been on display. Kaprizov and Zuccarello are known for their passing abilities and chemistry. It's a big reason why they are first and second on the team in primary shot assists, with 22 and 13 over those tracked games, respectively. Well, Zuccarello is tied for second, anyway. Rossi has 13 primary shot assists on his own. Rossi's setting up his teammates every bit as much as Zuccarello, whose role on the team is to be Kaprizov's set-up man. Rossi also gives Kaprizov some much-needed relief in the transition game. Kaprizov is one of the best players in the game at entering the offensive zone with possession, but his running mates have often left that duty solely on Kaprizov's shoulders. On the other hand, Rossi is equally as comfortable carrying the puck into the zone, which gives Kaprizov a reliable Plan B. With 11.6 carry-ins per hour, Rossi sits second on the team behind only Kaprizov (16.4), giving Kaprizov perhaps his only linemate who can lead the rush on his level. Through all of this, we can see exactly why Rossi brings this top line together. His game doesn't just offer any one thing for Kaprizov and Zuccarello to ride to success. Instead, Rossi is synthesizing the things that make his teammates great into one package, making him a multi-dimensional threat in the offensive zone. Rossi's finally in the right place, and the results are exactly what everyone dreamed of seeing three years ago.

The Minnesota Wild were convinced they got a steal in Danila Yurov when they selected him 24th overall in the 2022 NHL Draft. They weren't alone. Some experts saw Yurov as a top-10 talent in his class, with the so-called Russian Factor, accelerated by real concerns about geopolitical uncertainty, letting him tumble down the board. Although Yurov was cartoonishly dominant in the Russian junior circuit, his time in the KHL made it a genuine concern whether he could translate his talents to the NHL. His ice time in his draft year was absurdly low, but it was still concerning that he registered zero points over 40 KHL games in 2021-22. Even after rebounding somewhat with 12 points in 70 games (still with under 10 minutes a night) the following year, his stats were a concern. No matter how young, you'd probably like to see a player put up over 15 points in 101 KHL games over their career. The Wild would probably breathe a sigh of relief if Yurov was producing like a first-rounder in the KHL this year. However, that relief should be turning into euphoria. In recent weeks, Yurov is starting to look like the top-10 talent people hyped him to be. Yurov still could stand to get more minutes, but his 14 minutes and 55 seconds per night is almost double the 8:06 he averaged last season. That increase in ice time is partially leading to a big jump in scoring. Yurov has climbed just outside the top 20 in the KHL in points with 26 in 33 games. Those 26 points are tied with former NHL stars like Alexander Radulov and Alex Galchenyuk, and premier youngsters like 2023 Draft super-prospect Matvei Michkov. More encouraging is that Yurov is appearing to get better and better as the season goes on. With an assist on Thursday, Yurov notched his 22nd point (nine goals) in his past 23 games. Yurov has racked up four goals and 13 points in his past ten. This rapid, linear progression is exciting for a player who spent the past few seasons looking for any traction in the KHL. It's also boosting him into the realm of the best young KHL prospects we've seen. Here are the best Draft+2 seasons (in terms of points per game; minimum 20 games) by a KHL player over the league's history: 1. Vladimir Tarasenko, 2011-12: 0.87 2. Kirill Kaprizov, 2016-17: 0.86 3. Nikita Filatov, 2009-10: 0.85 4. Evgeny Kuznetsov, 2011-12: 0.84 5. DANILA YUROV, 2023-24: 0.79 6. Alexander Vasilyev, 2013-14: 0.75 7. Nikolai Prokhorkin, 2013-14: 0.71 8. Pavel Buchnevich, 2014-15: 0.63 9. Artemi Panarin, 2011-12: 0.62 10. Kristian Vesalainen 2018-19: 0.55 Prospects are never a sure thing, but Yurov's on a path as surefire as it gets. Tarasenko, Kaprizov, Kuznetsov, and Panarin each became stars in the NHL, with Buchnevich becoming a bonafide top-six forward. The odds are good, and with Yurov creeping toward the cream of the crop, they can get even better. All Yurov might need is just to keep logging more minutes. Yurov has played 16 or more minutes six times during his ten-game surge, which had only happened three times that season until that point. If that workload becomes the norm, expect big things to continue. His per-minute production stacks up better than most star Russians before him. Kaprizov is the only player who was more productive on a per-minute basis than Yurov, and he and Tarasenko are the only two surpassing him in scoring rate. You have to be a special player to get into the same conversation as those two. Not only does this season dispel concerns about Yurov's development overseas, it has to make you dream of him staying on the Kaprizov track. The good news keeps rolling in. Yurov's hot streak coincides with a shift toward playing him at center. The Wild mentioned before the season that they believed Yurov could make the transition despite Yurov mostly playing the wing. Now, we finally have some proof of concept. In his last 10 games, he's averaging nearly nine faceoffs per night, taking 10 or more draws in six of those games. We don't have many underlying stats to break down his overall game, but he has a strong reputation as a two-way player. Furthermore, his coaches are trusting him to play down the middle. That's a rarity for a 19-year-old Russian in the KHL, especially one who hasn't committed the next eight years or so of their life to the league. It's huge for Minnesota if Yurov keeps growing his game while learning a new position. As soon as next season, they might be able to field a group of centers that includes Joel Eriksson Ek, Marco Rossi, Ryan Hartman, Marat Khusnutdinov, and Danila Yurov. The Wild are getting closer to having genuine depth down the middle. Debuting Yurov next season at age 20 might sound aggressive, particularly for a Bill Guerin-run organization. But the more Yurov improves, and the closer he gets to coming stateside next season, the more realistic the possibility becomes. He's on track to have about 160 games of KHL experience by the time he can play for Minnesota next year. Is that enough experience to have Guerin resist his urge to slow-roll him in the AHL? If so, Wild fans might finally get the answer to a question they've wondered about for nearly a decade: What happens if Minnesota can get a Kaprizov-caliber player at age 20? Let's hope we get to find out.

When Bill Guerin took over the Minnesota Wild in 2019, he inherited a club that was long on experience and short on success. Led by long-time veterans like Mikko Koivu, Zach Parise, Ryan Suter, Eric Staal, and Devan Dubnyk, the Wild’s roster had an average age of 29.4 years old. That was tied for second in the NHL. The group hadn’t won a playoff series in five seasons. Critics around the State of Hockey called it a “country club” atmosphere. It did not take long for Guerin to figure out how to handle the situation. He blew that roster up. Within a year, Staal, Koivu, and Dubnyk were out, with Guerin hustling to navigate the former’s no-trade clause in dumping him. Sentiment be damned. In less than two years, out goes Parise and Suter in bold moves with ramifications that will still be felt over the next two seasons. Was it audacious? Yes. It’s hard to imagine Chuck Fletcher kicking so many guys to the curb. A world where Fletcher would let Koivu play games for the Columbus Blue Jackets instead of retiring as a Wild is unfathomable. But was it all necessary? Yes. An aging club with a rapidly closing window and a limited ceiling to begin with is no recipe for winning in the NHL. And as Guerin memorably said, “It’s about winning.” It’s that kind of brash bravado that got fans on board with a new vision for the Wild. The Wild are done playing it safe? They’re sick of the first-round losses and want to build a contender? A youth movement is on the way? Sign us up. Two weeks before the start of Year 5 of the Bill Guerin Experience and nine months before the Wild could finally start having some cap room with $24 million in cap space, that bold new vision became much murkier. So murky, in fact, that this team is looking a lot like the one he blew up. And if it is, it’s staying that way for a while. The Wild are old. Sure, they have young faces in prominent places. Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek are both 26. Matt Boldy is 22, with Calen Addison (23), Marco Rossi (22), and Brock Faber (21) hoping to take big roles. But there’s no denying the Wild’s age. Here are the top-ten oldest rosters entering the season: 1) Pittsburgh Penguins: 30.7 2) Washington Capitals: 29.5 3) Minnesota Wild 28.9 4) Dallas Stars: 28.8 T-5) Toronto Maple Leafs: 28.6 T-5) Seattle Kraken: 28.6 T-5) New York Islanders: 28.6 T-8) Colorado Avalanche: 28.5 T-8) Carolina Hurricanes: 28.5 10) New York Rangers: 28.4 Just like the team Guerin took over, his Wild enter the season as one of the three oldest teams in the league. The rest of that list falls into one of four bins. There’s Pittsburgh and Washington, whose mission statement is Screw it, we’re getting as many miles out of our aging star players as possible. There’s the Kraken, which was all but forced to have an aging team due to their expansion draft rules. Then there are the Stars, Leafs, Avalanche, Hurricanes, and Rangers, all who fancy themselves Cup Contenders. Then there’s the “Just Plain Old” bucket, where the Wild and the Islanders sit. It was hard to care about the team’s average age before this past weekend, given their circumstances. Minnesota needed bargains to tide them over to a deep prospect pool and the Parise/Suter shackles to loosen. Being old was a necessary evil, or so we thought. After signing Mats Zuccarello and Marcus Foligno to contracts that take them to their late 30s, the Guerin and the Wild front office have committed to being an old team. Their security blankets are likely to form a new type of shackle. Minnesota has 14 players under contract next season, slated to have an average age of 29.1 – and that’s after 35-year-old Patrick Maroon joins 38-year-olds Marc-Andre Fleury and Alex Goligoski in coming off the books. In 2025-26, the mythical year when $13 million of dead cap vanishes, the Wild are locked into nine contracts with an average age of 30.9 and as much job security as the old Old Core enjoyed. Seriously, look at who will be under contract in 2025-26. Mats Zuccarello: Age-38 season; pending UFA; $4.125M AAV; Full No-Move Clause Jared Spurgeon: Age-36 season; one year to UFA; $7.575M* AAV; 10-team No-Trade Clause Marcus Foligno: Age-34 season; two years to UFA; $4M* AAV; Full No-Move Clause Jonas Brodin: Age-32 season; two years to UFA; $6M AAV; Zero trade protection Freddy Gaudreau: Age-32 season; two years to UFA; $2.1 million; 15-team No-Trade Clause And no, this doesn’t account for the Ryan Hartman (32 in 2025-26) extension that appears destined to happen. Obviously, prospects will start taking some spots, which might help bring that average age down a touch. But remember: Everyone else on this team is older than they’ve ever been. And now they’re even older. By the time these deals start coming off the books, Kaprizov and Eriksson Ek will be 29, with Kaprizov currently slated for UFA status. Boldy will be in Year 4 of his contract. Many ELCs – from Rossi and Faber (and more) – will expire. That’s assuming, of course, that the Wild won’t find themselves with a similar problem as they did in the Koivu/Parise/Suter days. The ones where young players didn’t get prominent spots in the lineup because aging, entrenched veterans with a lot of job security are soaking up vital roles. The team is showing little urgency to turn their roster over to their deep prospect pool in hopes of icing a younger, faster team with more upside. Instead, Guerin seems satisfied with his group and close-knit locker room culture, despite this team being 0-for-4 in postseason series on his watch. “I get [the criticisms],” he told the media Friday when explaining why he committed to paying Foligno $19.1 million over the next five years. “But you know what? I like our team with Marcus Foligno way better than without him.” It can not be ignored that Guerin has watched Foligno for 23 playoff games, where he’s only scored one goal and six points. Instead of being bold, Guerin’s habitually settled for what he knows, perhaps for the fear of the unknown. “Teams would step up for somebody like Marcus,” said Guerin. “We didn’t want to see it get to that.” You do that for a half-dozen or more veterans on the brink of their 30s, and you get a roster that’s going to be contending for the oldest in the league over the next several years. So close to the finish line of being able to turn over the team to a new look and feel, Guerin’s front office is delivering a team that threatens to look similar to the aging team he blew up. Now, one with a superstar in Kirill Kaprizov, and which seems to like each other? Sure. But the Wild are sticking to the status quo, hoping the same old team won’t deliver the same old results. *An earlier version misprinted the AAV of Jared Spurgeon and Marcus Foligno. We regret the error.

The Minnesota Wild look like they’re done with their offseason additions, so it’s time to consider what they could look like on the ice this season. No one knows what the lines will be besides Dean Evason. However, there is one player who could change Minnesota’s lineup for the better. Marco Rossi can make the Wild’s lineup scarier, more dynamic, and more effective. Placing Rossi in the top six or even at the top-line center spot unlocks all kinds of interesting possibilities for the Wild. First off, there are three certainties in this life: Death Taxes And 36 and 97 will always be together No matter what they do with the players around them, the Wild will always pair Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello together. It’s just a matter of who will center them. Ryan Hartman has filled that spot recently. He’s done an admirable job playing out of position, but another player may better suit that spot. Rossi should center Zuccy and Kaprizov. He does not need to be “the top-line center.” A Matt Boldy - Joel Eriksson Ek - Marcus Johansson line can be that for this team. Eriksson Ek has developed a strong offensive game, and he can finally win some Selkes now that Boston Bruins legend Patrice Bergeron has retired. Boldy is more than capable of being a top-line player. He’s never caved to the pressure before, so there’s no reason to think he couldn’t handle it now. Johansson showed great chemistry with Boldy and Eriksson Ek when they played together at the end of last season. Johansson is a veteran who’s played all over the lineup in his time with a plethora of teams. He’s played over 14 years with six teams. He’s lined up with top guys like Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom, and Evgeny Kuznetsov. He can handle it. Kaprizov does not need to be on the quote-unquote “top line.” He just needs enough ice time to produce offensively. As long as Kaprizov and Zuccarello get even time with Boldy’s scoring line, it does not matter. Minnesota’s first and second lines are arbitrary. Kaprizov will still get powerplay time and Evason will deploy him in scoring situations. He’ll be fine. He cares a whole heck of a lot more about winning hockey games than he does about what line he plays on. Evason moved Hartman off the top line last year. Sam Steel played 39 games between the two last year, and he’s not on the team anymore. There are other options. Heck, even Freddy Gaudreau got a shot at it. The Wild would rather have these journeymen, who have already proven to not be that effective, play with Zuccarello and Kaprizov rather than the future franchise centerman. With Rossi’s style of play, he’s more equipped to play the kind of fast and skilled game that the dynamic duo plays. Dean was sitting on the winning lottery ticket but he was too scared to leave Boston to cash it in. Hartman has been a bottom-six player in the past, and he’s been effective. He could be the perfect third-line center or wing with Marcus Foligno and Gaudreau. With Rossi in the top six, it gives the Wild two responsible scoring lines and two hard-nosed checking lines. A Foligno - Gaudreau - Hartman third line has just enough offensive pop to challenge and create scoring chances, too. This is what a lineup with Rossi in the top six would look like: Line 1 or 2: Boldy - Eriksson Ek - Johansson Line 1 or 2: Zuccarello - Rossi - Kaprizov Line 3: Foligno - Gaudreau - Hartman Line 4: Duhaime - Connor Dewar - Maroon That lineup would be filthy. All the lines can play a role and play it well. It puts Rossi in a position to succeed. The Wild would have two scoring lines and two checking lines that can provide occasional offense. It’s a dangerous lineup. There are no guarantees that the Wild put Rossi on the top line this year. They didn’t last season. However, Rossi could make a massive impact if he capitalizes on a top-six role, so it’s worth experimenting with it. Now, if he isn’t fully engaged in practice and not ready to go during camp, then there is no reason to elevate him. But that’s never been a problem for Rossi. He’s determined to make the team and not return to Iowa. I assume the Wild want to develop Rossi as a center. There’s been no talk about having him move to the wing. Therefore, it’s fine to start Rossi on the third line. But his wingers would be a combination of Foligno, Gaudreau, and Brandon Duhaime. Maybe even newcomer Patrick Maroon. None of those guys are goal-scorers. Foligno proved that his 23-goal season was an outlier and not a sign of things to come. He’s regressed to his mean as a scorer, netting around ten goals a year. Freddy Gaudreau has never netted 20 goals before. While he’s been better with the Wild, scoring 14 and 19 in the past two seasons, he’s not really an offensive threat. Both of these players are defense-first type players. They are known for being responsible on their own end, with the ability to chip in on offense occasionally. These are not the kind of players the Wild should have Rossi build confidence with. Rossi is a playmaker. One of his best attributes is the ability to set others up for scoring chances. Therefore, it would make sense to surround him with guys who have displayed the ability to score. Maybe Rossi can develop some chemistry and create chances for his offensively challenged wingers but don’t hold your breath. Either way, it's just not the ideal spot for him. Rossi is not a special case, the Wild have made rookies earn it before. He had a chance last year, and he could not capitalize on it. This year, the benefits outweigh the costs of putting Rossi between Kaprizov and Zuccarello. Rossi has grinded, he has worked, he has earned it. Now is the time. All stats and data via HockeyDB and MoneyPuck.com

It makes sense that your focus turns towards the future when you're not super excited about the here-and-now. Unless signing Patrick Maroon sent you to take time off work for next June so you could be clear to attend the Minnesota Wild's Stanley Cup Parade, that might be the spot you're in right now. And there are a lot of future assets to get excited about. The Athletic's Scott Wheeler dropped his list of the top-50 NHL prospects on Tuesday. The Wild have three prospects on the list, with Marco Rossi (No. 30), Liam Öhgren (40), and Danila Yurov (47). Only the tanking Chicago Blackhawks (five prospects in the top-50) and Columbus Blue Jackets (four) have more representation. It also gets better for the Wild. For one, had this list included goalies, all-world netminder prospect Jesper Wallstedt would surely bump Minnesota up to four members in that top-50. Even without Wallstedt in the mix, four more Wild prospects were acknowledged among 76 honorable mentions. Seven prospects in Wheeler's top-126 ties Columbus and the Anaheim Ducks for the NHL lead. Now, this is all one scout's opinion, but it confirms the belief that the Wild's future is bright. A thought not felt since around 2012. Which leads reader TCMooch to ask in the comments of our article about the prospect pool from Monday: There's no doubt that the Wild had a small army of exciting prospects going into the 2012-13 lockout season. In just three years, the Wild injected the following first-and-second-rounders into their system: 2010 Draft: Mikael Granlund (No. 9 overall), Brett Bulmer (39th), Johan Larsson (56th), Jason Zucker (59th) 2011 Draft: Jonas Brodin (10th), Zack Phillips (28th), Mario Lucia (60th) 2012 Draft: Matt Dumba (7th), Raphael Bussieres (46th) Via Trade: Charlie Coyle (28th in 2010, Brent Burns trade), Nino Niederreiter (5th in 2010, Cal Clutterbuck trade) Much like the Zach Parise and Ryan Suter signings that happened simultaneously, these names would eventually leave a bitter taste in the State of Hockey's mouth. We know the story: The Wild never got past the second round with the core of this group, which Paul "The Mad King" Fenton mostly dismantled during his reign. With Dumba likely walking in free agency, only Brodin remains as the last vestige of this would-be dynasty. It's fair to ask, over a decade later: What the heck happened? In some ways, nothing. Or at least, nothing seriously wrong. In a lot of ways, most of this core group was a home run for the Wild. Look at the careers these players had. You can count Brodin, Coyle, Dumba, Granlund, Niederreiter, and Zucker as all having long careers as top-six caliber forwards. Look at where these guys rank in terms of career Standings Points Above Replacement (SPAR) among their draft classes: Niederreiter: 33.7 SPAR (eighth among Class of 2010) Zucker: 30.1 SPAR (11th among 2010) Brodin: 26.8 SPAR (12th among 2011, first among defensemen) Granlund: 23.5 SPAR (14th among 2010) Coyle: 23.4 SPAR (15th among 2010) Dumba: 18.8 SPAR (10th among 2012, fifth among defensemen) Larsson: 11.2 (29th among 2010) Out of those 11 high picks, that's six players who were among the top-15 NHLers in their class, and seven among the top-30. And we're not talking about these guys going with top draft picks, either. Instead of getting Granlund, Zucker, Brodin, and Dumba, it wouldn't have been hard for them to walk away instead with Dylan McIlrath (10th in 2010), Stephen Johns (60th in 2010), Duncan Siemens (11th in 2011), and Derrick Pouliot (8th in 2012). Then where would the Wild be? That's not to say this era of Wild drafting was flawless. The Wild tried to get players in the Milan Lucic grit-and-skilled mold with Bulmer and Bussieres, and they flopped. The biggest knock against them, though, was taking lead-footed Zack Phillips in the 2011 Draft, became a bust while later picks like John Gibson (39th overall), Brandon Saad (43rd), and especially Nikita Kucherov (58th) went off the board before the Wild could pick again. Even the hits could've been bigger. Had the Wild not been so gun-shy with taking Russians until Kirill Kaprizov, they might have fallen in love with Vladimir Tarasenko (16th overall in 2010, 38.3 career SPAR) over Granlund. You can't say that wouldn't have looked nicer. The Wild got a top-10 player with a top-10 pick in 2012 with Dumba, but there's no doubting that Filip Forsberg (11th in 2012, class-leading 36.5 career SPAR) would have been a much better pick. So, in some ways, the Wild got very lucky. Most of their picks were solid contributors for years and generally performed to the level of or surpassed their draft slot. In some ways, they did not. None of these players turned into a Tarasenko or Kucherov or Forsberg-type impact player. Hockey Prospecting sets their quick-and-dirty standard for stardom at 0.7-plus points per game for forwards, and 0.45 points per game for defensemen. Here's how this class of prospects stacks up in terms of career point production and individual star seasons: Now, I don't have to tell you that points are far from the best way to assess a player. With the exceptions of Coyle and Granlund, these players were, at their peaks, analytics darlings whose impact measured far beyond their point totals. It is true, though, that having so many analytics darlings didn't get them over the hump, largely because there weren't many star-caliber forwards to put the puck in the net come playoff time. The points aren't an end-all-be-all, but they're relevant. So we know what went wrong back in 2010. What is stopping this group from going by the same wayside? Well, first, let's get a handle on who this group even is. Let's list the first-and-second-rounders the Wild acquired since the 2019 Draft as a starting point. 2019: Matt Boldy (12th overall), Vladislav Firstov (42nd), Hunter Jones (59th) 2020: Rossi (ninth), Marat Khusnutdinov (37th), Ryan O'Rourke (39th) 2021: Wallstedt (20th), Carson Lambos (26th), Jack Peart (54th) 2022: Öhgren (19th), Yurov (24th), Hunter Haight (47th), Rieger Lorenz (56th) 2023: Charlie Stramel (21st), Rasmus Kumpulainen (53rd), Riley Heidt (64th) Trade: Calen Addison (53rd in 2018, Zucker trade), Brock Faber (45th in 2020, Kevin Fiala trade) Go ahead, take a moment to catch your breath. I'll wait. The thing most stands out when comparing this group to the 2012 class is the sheer amount of quantity. Fletcher's early 2010s Wild rebuilt quickly and impressively, grabbing 11 first-and-second round picks in a three-year span. They immediately started cashing in, and justifiably so. When Parise and Suter come in, it's go-time, and ultimately trading, say, Larsson and Matt Hackett, and two high picks for Jason Pominville helped them way more than it hurt. Guerin's Wild might have a cash-in phase down the road, but we're looking at five years of largely uninterrupted prospect capital accumulation. Instead of 11 first-and-second-rounders, we see 18 on this list. This doesn't even include later-round prospects that excite the Wild organization, like Adam Beckman (third-round, 2019), Daemon Hunt (third-round, 2020), and David Spacek (fifth-round, 2022), to name a few. Unless you get the top picks, prospects are going to be a numbers game in the NHL. And this version of the Wild organization has numbers. Speaking of numbers, one thing Minnesota seems to do now is actively target prospects with the upside that comes from a proven history of scoring. It's not in every case, but a Wild prospect in the 2020s is much more likely to put up points than the average Fletcher draft pick. Let's look at these draft picks through the lens of Hockey Prospecting's Star Probabilities. Here are the top-10 2012-ish Wild prospects and their star probabilities after their draft year and their draft-plus-three season: Granlund was the closest thing they got to a surefire star in this group, and he was only ever a coin flip that ended up landing stuck at a 90-degree angle. They admirably shot their shot with Bertschy, a sixth-round pick who put up huge numbers in Swiss juniors, but lost that gamble outright. Other than that, Phillips (ironically, the bust) and Dumba were the only players that had a one-in-four chance of stardom on the day of their draft. Let's now contrast this with the Wild's current group. Here are the 10 best Wild prospects in terms of their draft day star probability, with how much it's been raised or lowered since, using their draft-plus-three percentage when applicable. If not, I'll denote their current mark with a (C): The difference is staggering. To truly grasp this, we only need to look at Beckman, who would have finished tied for 16th on this list. He had a 14% star probability when the Wild drafted him. On the Fletcher Wild prospect list, Beckman would've finished tied for eighth with Niederreiter. Moreover, after his draft-plus-three season, his 10% star probability would be third behind Granlund and Dumba. Today, Beckman is one of ten prospects who currently have a 10% or greater chance of becoming a star (Lambos and Spacek are the other ones not currently on the list). That doesn't sound like much, and it's not. But if you've got 10 darts that all have a 10% chance or higher of hitting, that's a great spot to be in. There are also two other areas where today's youth movement has a massive one-up on the group which came before it. We haven't even factored goaltending into the equation, and Wallstedt is far ahead of what the Wild were packing in net at the start of last decade. Kuemper ended up (eventually) being a very good NHL goalie, but Wallstedt is by miles a more advanced and NHL-ready goalie prospect. Furthermore, they might have more stability in net than Kuemper had ahead of him, provided they can secure Filip Gustavsson's services while breaking in Wallstedt to the NHL. Minnesota threw Kuemper in the deep end on a team that was expected to win now. The Wild's current cap situation and prospect timetables mean most fans won't have that expectation for another two years. The other thing is that the Wild might already have a "star" in the NHL already, and maybe two. Boldy has scored 0.80 points per game in 128 contests in the NHL. Addison has flaws to his overall game that he may or may not be able to clean up, but he scored 29 points in 62 games as a rookie. That's 0.47 points per game, which clears Hockey Prospecting's "Star" threshold. Counting the 18 games he played before this season, and Addison is already at 0.41 points per game for his career, and he should only be expected to pick up the pace. If the Wild already have two star-level point producers in hand from this prospect system, that takes so much burden off the rest of the group right off the bat. You'd still want Minnesota to churn out some other star-caliber players, of course, but their eggs aren't all in one basket. That's probably the biggest thing that went wrong with the Fletcher-era group. They got a bunch of solid NHL-caliber players, but if Granlund didn't become a game-breaking player, Minnesota would turn into a miasma of mediocrity. That all happened. With Boldy and (hopefully) Addison providing star-level production for this next young core, it's not a disaster if Rossi or Heidt only become a Granlund or Zucker-level producer. Someone like Faber can embrace a Brodin-like shutdown role without everyone in St. Paul tapping their watches waiting for more offense to come. The high-end talent is important, but a lot of these players are (likely) going to be those solid complimentary pieces. That's fine, as long as the Wild have a main event for them to complement. There's plenty of time for things to go wrong, of course. Until proven otherwise, you should assume prospects going to be as good as the local media (Hockey Wilderness, the most trustworthy source in the hockey world being the lone exception, of course) and team hype them up to be. Aside from Boldy, none of this is in the bag yet. But at least right now, it looks like this version of the Wild's young core far exceeds the Granlund Generation in terms of raw upside, production, and sheer depth. Any time you take to get worried about the ghosts of the past is time you'd be much happier spending getting hyped for the future. All SPAR data from Evolving Hockey, all prospect data from Hockey Prospecting unless otherwise stated.

When the Minnesota Wild read Charlie Stramel's name at pick No. 21 of the NHL Draft, the State of Hockey's collective reaction was, more or less, “Who?” That might be odd for a born-and-raised Minnesota kid, but Wild fans (myself included) were still trying to recover from their rage of the Chicago Blackhawks taking another, more highly-touted hometown hero. At 19th overall, two picks ahead of where the Wild were drafting, the hated Blackhawks scooped up Mounds View's Oliver Moore, because of course they did. I can’t say that my initial reaction to the Wild announcing Stramel as their first pick in the draft was a good one. I didn't leave it there, though. I took a deep breath and made a call to a trusted friend of mine that played with Stramel before he went to Wisconsin. We are leaving him anonymous at his request, but he glowed about Stramel's potential. According to him, Stramel is an absolute freak and he's convinced we will look back and see this was a great pick. "He's one of the best players I've ever played with." Stramel did struggle at Wisconsin, no one is disputing that. But it has to be said that he was facing a plethora of things working against him. Wisconsin was a dumpster fire as a team, playing with no real plan or structure. They were one of the worst teams in the Big Ten and their coach was fired after their putrid performance. He was thrown onto the top line and expected to be a star from the second he stepped on the ice. That’s not a good environment for a kid to develop in. Add in a back injury, and you have a recipe for a not-very-successful season as a young freshman adjusting to the college game. Scoring just 12 points in 33 games is tough, but he's hardly the first Wild player to struggle to adjust to the NCAA. If you'll remember, Matt Boldy had an extremely slow start out of the gate at Boston College, with just six points in his first 20. His play was alarming and he had minuscule point totals, but eventually, he figured it out and went on a tear. This was also on a team with much more structured and talented than Stramel's Badgers. That better position no doubt helped Boldy develop and rebound for a successful second half. Look past last year's stumble, and you'll see there's much more to Stramel than meets the eye. But don't take it from me. “He plays to his size," Stramel's former teammate says of the 6-foot-3, 222 lbs. center. "He is not easily knocked off his skates. He skates super hard and he has a rocket of a shot.” It's very clear that few players have his natural physical gifts. It's clearer that few players work harder to maximize those gifts. The NHL doesn't put as much stock into the combine as the NFL, but Stramel's performance there stood out nonetheless. Director of Amateur Scouting Judd Brackett unwittingly echoes his former teammate's claims about Stramel's athleticism. As Brackett told NHL.com's Scott Burnside at the draft: "To be honest with you, he's a freak." Before his freshman season, Stramel used his athleticism to put up points. He was almost a point-per-game player for the US NTDP, and a half-point-per-game player at the Under-20 World Junior Championships. Very often, he played against older competition, and very often, he succeeded. This is why Stramel was a sure-fire top-15 pick coming into the season. Centers with his combination of size, speed, and skill don’t come along very often. Whatever Stramel's struggles were, he still had that. That rare set of traits was the biggest reason the Wild targeted him, as Brackett emphasized in post-draft interviews. Point production was the focus of most of the criticism around Stramel's selection, but zeroing in on that misses the point. It's not just that Stramel can skate and has good hands. Stramel also displays a full 200-foot game, putting in the effort and work all over the ice. A lot of players get described that way, but his former teammate backs that up. “He’s willing to backcheck and pick guys up just as well as he can get in the offensive zone.” That defensive ability, his former teammate claims, makes Stramel a more well-rounded player than Isaac Howard, a top prospect in his own right, who went 21st overall to the Tampa Bay Lightning at the 2022 Draft. It's no knock on Howard, who scored 17 points in 35 games as a freshman at UMD. They're different players with their own skill sets. But if you're looking for a player who can make an impact in all three zones, Stramel has the decisive edge. Stramel's former teammate also speaks very highly of his character and how he is in the locker room. "Awesome guy, super nice, not cocky at all. Super upbeat, he's a team player and works his butt off in the corners." That’s the kind of stuff you love to hear if you are a coach or a fan about a new young player. Character is a big part of the identity the Wild are building. Players at every level love teammates that work hard for pucks and are a positive force in the locker room. It's easy to see Stramel turning into an even more filled-out and aggressive Joel Eriksson Ek, a two-way center boasting both size and skill. Stramel may never be a point-per-game player in the NHL, but if you get a reliable 200-foot center to play in your middle six, that's a win. There was disappointment initially when the Wild drafted Eriksson Ek, but no one's complaining about that pick now, are they? If, or more likely, when Stramel turns it around at Wisconsin next year, fans may well look at this pick and be happy the Wild nabbed Stramel where they did. His ceiling is sky-high and if he can turn it around and put it all together, watch out. But again, you don't have to just take my word for it.