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By Justin Hein -
In recent seasons, Minnesota Wild fans have been spoiled by seeing what a future superstar looks like in their first NHL games. Kirill Kaprizov scored an overtime winner in his NHL debut, Brock Faber looked right at home in playoff action, and Matt Boldy catalyzed Kevin Fiala’s career year in 2021-22.
It’s safe to say that Liam Ohgren didn’t make the same impression. While there was hope that Ohgren could play a full-time NHL role and solve Minnesota's secondary scoring, he was unimpressive in his seven NHL games this year.
To open the regular season, the coaching staff played Marcus Johansson on the second line instead, leaving Ohgren on the fourth line, which didn’t maximize his skillset. Eventually, the Wild sent Ohgren down to Iowa. Then, when the NHL club needed an AHL call-up, they promoted Michael Milne instead of Ohgren.
It’s not the optimal outcome for the Wild this year. Secondary scoring is the team’s biggest weakness. That’s a polite way of saying that Marcus Johansson probably wouldn’t be a second-line player on a team with Stanley Cup aspirations.
Does this mean that the Ohgren pick was a failure?
Of course not. But it’s easy to feel like a letdown when there were such high expectations only a month ago. However, playing on Minnesota’s second line all year might have been Ohgren’s best-case scenario.
So, what’s a realistic expectation moving forward?
Early returns on Liam Ohgren are encouraging, even if he’s not on the superstar track. Before his NHL debut in April 2024, Ohgren had an encouraging pedigree. The Wild took him in the first round of the 2022 draft after a strong showing in Sweden’s minor leagues.
Ohgren built on that in the two seasons after the draft, ascending to the SHL (Sweden’s professional league) and improving upon his strong junior scoring numbers. Jumping from junior hockey to professional hockey, where grown men rather than junior players defended Ohgren, is a major milestone for any prospect.
That improvement is especially noteworthy, given that he dealt with injuries in 2022-23 and 2023-24.
It might be hard to remember after crazy rookie seasons from Kaprizov, Boldy, and Faber. However, those are encouraging returns for a draft pick from the end of the first round. For Wild fans who followed the last generation of prospects, Ohgren should look pretty familiar.
Compare his scoring numbers to Mikael Granlund’s and Jason Zucker’s. The below graphs show an advanced metric called NHL Equivalent Points (NHLe). Byron Bader developed this particular NHLe model from HockeyProspecting.com.
NHLe translates points-per-game from other hockey leagues into a full NHL season by factoring in league difficulty. For example, points in the Swedish pro league count more than Swedish juniors. It also gives more credit for goals and primary assists than secondary assists to make it more predictive of future performance. NHLe isn’t a perfect metric as it only includes offensive results, but players who score at an elite rate in minor leagues often do so through effective two-way play.
Specifically, what stands out here is Ohgren’s NHLe in D2, or the second season after he became draft-eligible. Last season, Ohgren proved that he had not only healed from his injuries but also developed into a better player who could perform at the professional level. Ohgren’s D2 NHLe was 48, Granlund’s was 47 in Finland’s professional league, and Zucker’s was 38 in the NCAA. It’s impressive that Ohgren put up those numbers, given he was returning from injury.
However, compared to Boldy and Kaprizov’s numbers and early returns in the NHL, Ohgren belongs in a different tier of prospects. Ohgren is much closer to Zucker and Granlund from the minor league data.
Does that mean that Zucker and Granlund make acceptable comparables?
Diving deeper into all three players’ paths to the NHL, they look increasingly similar. Ohgren and Granlund are the easiest to compare since they came through the Swedish and Finnish prospect systems. Both spent significant time at the professional level the year before the draft, though Ohgren only played about half of his games in the SHL, while Granlund was a full-time player in Finland’s Liiga.
Zucker spent his pre-draft year in the US National Team development program (USNTDP), which is somewhat similar to Ohgren’s time in Sweden’s league for players under age 20, the J20 Nationell. Both are junior level programs, but the USNTDP plays games against opponents younger than 18 in the USHL.
The similarities continue after the draft. Ohgren and Granlund became full-time productive players at the professional level, with the obvious caveat for Ohgren being that his scoring dropped while recovering from his injury that year. By the end of the year, he scored at a torrid pace in the SHL playoffs. Zucker improved after leaving the USNTDP to play college hockey, and his NHLe numbers immediately caught up with Ohgren and Granlund’s.
Granlund, Zucker, and Ohgren remained in the same league for their D2 seasons, and each increased their offensive production. Ohgren flew overseas after the SHL season, played three games in Iowa, and saw his first NHL action. Zucker also played six NHL games after the NCAA season.
Ohgren has been ineffective in his NHL action. However, he’s been exceptional in Iowa, potting four goals in four games as of this writing. That’s also on par with Granlund and Zucker’s D3 performance. Granlund split time between Iowa and Minnesota, playing 27 NHL games but producing only 8 points. His games in Des Moines, however, were extremely productive. Zucker played 20 NHL games and 55 in Iowa. Like Granlund and Ohgren, Zucker produced far better in Iowa than in Minnesota.
All three players had similar journeys to the NHL. Barring a disaster at the AHL level or an unforeseen breakout during this injury call-up, Ohgren should remain on the Zucker-Granlund track.
Zucker and Granlund developed into top-six forwards. At the peak of their prime, they were true top-line players. That provides a rough vision of the career Liam Ohgren may have.
The problem is that Zucker and Granlund don’t provide much clarity to project Ohgren’s near future because their paths diverged after D3. After the 2013 playoffs, in which they posted one goal and one assist each, Granlund became a full-time player in Minnesota while Zucker remained on the roster bubble. Ohgren could follow either of those paths or end up somewhere in the middle.
In addition, both Zucker and Granlund struggled to find consistency until around age 24. Liam Ohgren will turn 24 in the 2028-29 season. That doesn’t align with the Wild’s “five-year plan,” which owner Craig Leipold implied ends 2027-28.
That puts Minnesota in a complicated position with their young Swedish winger. The Wild need help in their top-six forward group, but they don’t need it on the Zucker/Granlund timeline; they need it now, or at least within the next one or two seasons. It’s unlikely that Ohgren will accelerate his timeline. With injuries in each of his past two seasons, we shouldn’t take for granted that he’s already in the AHL.
Ultimately, it’s not the worst problem to have. With a deep prospect pool and hopes of a Stanley Cup by 2028, the Wild will likely trade some prospects to improve the NHL roster. Whether Minnesota deals him away or holds him for the future, Ohgren’s career will be rewarding -- for himself and the Wild organization.
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