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By Luke Sims -
The 13th overall pick is a precarious spot for the Minnesota Wild. The Wild will miss out on the big prospects at the top of the draft, like Macklin Celebrini, Ivan Demidov, and Artyom Levshunov. And after those top guys, who knows how the draft will go this year?
Last season, the Wild went way off the board when they picked Charlie Stramel 21st overall. Stramel was not supposed to go until at least the start of the second round, but the Wild took him 21st overall.
Stramel has since been disappointing in college. After a challenging freshman year at Wisconsin, he followed it up with another not-so-good sophomore year. Stramel totaled just 20 points in 67 games across two years. Stramel will be taking his talents to Michigan State to play under Adam Nightengale, his former US National Development Team coach.
The Stramel draft pick may leave Wild fans with a bad taste in their mouth about how Friday’s draft is going to go. But do not fear: The Wild should be getting a good player with the 13th pick.
“You’ve got 14 or 15 guys that are pretty agreed upon as the cream of the crop in this class,” The Athletic’s draft and prospects writer Scott Wheeler said. “There’s going to be a player available that I view as one of the best prospects in the draft, and most others agree one of the better ones, they’ll be able to get.”
“I would think the D will go,” Chris Peters, a long-time NHL scout, said. “But otherwise you’re settling on a pretty good forward prospect. But if you feel those guys are falling back because of the natural draft order selection, you feel you can trade from 13 to 18 and maybe still get that guy or something, it’s worth a shot.”
Sam Dickinson and Carter Yakemchuk are the defenders who are most likely to fall to Minnesota. The top-tier offensive guys like Zeev Buium and Zayne Parekh will most likely be off the board, and the consensus top-two defenders Artyom Levshunov and Anton Silayev should be long gone by 13.
There’s no guarantee that Dickinson and Yakemchuk will be there, but the chances are higher. The knock on Dickinson is that he doesn’t have elite traits in any area. He has good speed, good size, and good hockey sense, but his ceiling is not considered as high as some of the other defenders in this class.
Yakemchuk has some believers who think he should be long gone by pick 13. But the knock on Yakemchuk is that he’s a bit reckless. While he’s shown to be an elite goal scorer in the WHL, he took a ton of penalties and did not have elite foot speed. Yakemchuk is rough around the edges, but his potential is still sky-high.
The Wild could also move off the 13th pick. If the right prospects or trade fall into a spot they can get them, they won’t hesitate to move up or down. And the Wild think it could be advantageous to move up.
“We’d love to,” Wild Director of Amateur Scouting Judd Brackett said. “Every year, we identify the lines in the first round where you’d move up, where you’d stand still, where you’d trade back. We’d love to. The problem is going to be that the teams in those spots are very happy with their choices that they have.
“(Guerin) is very active. If we encourage him to make a call on a trade-up, he’s never afraid to. It’s really refreshing. From that standpoint, he’s very active. We’ll listen and identify it. I just think the chances to move up will be difficult. There are teams that have eyes on players they’ve liked. We’re 13, and if that range (of top players) is 12-14, most teams are liking the players in their grouping.”
There is no clear guy I could see the Wild moving up for. Instead, I see them moving up or down the board to select a falling player. If Demidov or Lindstrom are still on the board when the seventh or eighth pick rolls around, I could see the Wild moving up to snag one of the elite talents in the class.
What if moving down for a player would be the better option?
“That’s the trick,” Brackett said. “As the draft starts to unfold, usually there’s a line where you want to stand still and get a player from. And if, for some reason, the players we are eyeballing start to go sooner than we expected, we have to make a decision on the floor there and see if we can find a partner. It’s never as easy as it sounds. We can fantasize about trades, but if you don’t have the partner, nothing is happening.”
If the Wild ended up moving back, they should not go too far. A player like Sitan Solberg still fits their prototype as a big, aggressive defender. Who knows where the biggest wild card in the draft, Cole Eiserman, will go? However, he’ll probably be there for the Wild at 13 or later.
In terms of forwards, someone like Berkly Catton, Konsta Helenius, or Michael Brandsegg-Nygard should be available at 13, although Catton likely will be gone by then. A big toolsy center like Cayden Lindstrom might be there at 13, but centers like him don’t usually last too long in the draft.
However you slice it, the Wild will have a very good player on the board at 13. Whether it’s a forward or a defender, Minnesota will have an opportunity to add a very good player to the team's future.
The Wild lack a top-tier defensive prospect like what Dickinson or Yakemchuk could provide. Bringing in a player like Catton or Helenius doesn’t fit with what Bill Guerin seems to be in the market to do.
Marco Rossi is a smaller center who has been the subject of trade rumors all offseason because Guerin wants to target a bigger player. Catton and Helenius are both below six feet tall but highly skilled.
Last season, the Wild prioritized size over skill with their first two picks, Rasmus Kumpulainen and Stramel. Then, Minnesota took Riley Heidt, who lit the WHL on fire. The Wild will allow Heidt to make the roster in the fall.
Have the Wild learned their lesson on drafting size over skill?
“In a perfect world,” Brackett said. “We can find the balance. We can find someone who is the best player available and fits a positional need, whether it’s size, strength or speed. We are always talking about our prospect pool and where it’s shallow and where we can make gains in a draft. But we won’t want to reach too far. We want to make sure we’re still in a range of player we think is going to be successful.
“More than need, it’s identity. There’s a culture being created, systematically, the way Guerin wants the team to play. So when we can find the best available that also fits that, we’re going to jump all over it. It doesn’t happen every year. Some years, you get higher here and lower in one area. But overall, we want to find the best cross-section of identity plus best player available.”
Brackett has done a tremendous job identifying falling players who turn into steals. Just look at the past few drafts. Rossi and Marat Khusnutdinov were considered steals and fell because of their size. Now, they are both in the NHL. In 2021, Jesper Wallstedt and Carson Lambos should have gone way earlier, and the Wild capitalized by letting them both fall into their laps. In 2022, Danila Yurov was a top 10 talent in the class, but Minnesota got him at 24 due to geopolitical tensions. And just last year, the Wild scooped up Riley Hedit at the end of the second when his skill should have warranted a first-rounder.
Look at Brackett's time in Vancouver before he came to Minnesota. Brackett was able to secure multiple falling stars like Brock Boeser, Quinn Hughes, and Thatcher Demko.
The draft can be one of the most stressful times of the year for Wild fans. 32 GMs packed into a giant sphere in a desert, giving each other passive-aggressive looks as fans and insiders refresh their Twitter pages looking for the latest breaking news.
But do not fret. While last season’s first round was not what many may have hoped for, the Wild still let Brackett do what Brackett does best: find value. Hedit in the second round was a steal, and Brackett is in an even better position this time.
Trust in Brackett and let him guide the proverbial Wild ship. Minnesota will get a good and valuable player as long as Brackett is the one turning in the names.
All stats and data via Elite Prospects and HockeyDB unless otherwise noted.
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