What Is the Opportunity Cost Of Trading For David Jiříček?

You don't have to, but you can look at the David Jiříček trade like this: The Minnesota Wild traded up to the sixth overall pick in the 2022 Draft. If on that draft day, someone offered the State of Hockey a chance to trade up to get Jiříček -- without even costing them the picks that became Liam Öhgren and Danila Yurov -- that deal would be enthusiastically approved.

Granted, that is the most favorable way to frame that trade. After three years, the bloom has fallen somewhat off the 6-foot-5 defenseman's rose. Some analysts like TSN's Craig Button, who ranked Jiříček sixth in his draft class at the time, are cooling on him. 

"He's not going to be a top-pair defenseman. He's just not going to be," Button declared to The Athletic's Joe Smith last month. "Accept what he is, and go on from there: A bottom-pair defenseman. A right shot, No. 5 defenseman on the right side. Stop worrying about offense."

But of course, he also has believers. It's why teams pursued him last season, and why the Wild had to part with a robust package of draft picks for him. "He's a player we believe in," vouched Judd Brackett, the Wild's director of amateur scouting, earlier this week to Smith. "[He's] a player we're excited about. Great attitude. ... It's a really hard player to find: right shot with that size with that pedigree."

The Wild tend to slow-roll prospects under Bill Guerin's management, and they only put Jiříček on the ice for six games last season. As a result, analysts and fans surrounding the team are antsy, especially as the 2025 NHL Draft is rapidly approaching. Minnesota's price for Jiříček will be most felt next Friday, when they miss out on their first-round pick.

Today, we're less concerned with whether Jiříček will be worth the cost and more curious about what the actual cost will be. The Class of 2025 was considered uninspiring entering the year, but as players emerged, it has become viewed more favorably among scouts. Does that make the 20th overall pick that Minnesota surrendered to Dean Evason's Columbus Blue Jackets more valuable than we think?

Wild fans know the power of the 20th overall pick. They used it in 2015 to get Joel Eriksson Ek, who's become one of the best two-way forces in the history of a franchise full of those. Six years later, Minnesota traded up to the 20th pick to draft Jesper Wallstedt, who, despite a tough year, is still seen as the Goalie of the Future.

It's not just the Wild that have profited from that draft slot. Sure, sometimes it churns out a Beau Bennett or Dennis Cholowski, but Anthony Mantha, Nick Schmaltz, "Smooth (ft.)" Robert Thomas, and Rasmus Kupari. That's a solid track record there.

However, none of those guys are in this particular class. We have to go off the players who are there, which means digging through mock drafts. So, let's look at the players draftniks have mocked to the Blue Jackets -- who, like the Wild, are entering the draft without a pressing need to address -- with the Wild's No. 20 overall.

Corey Pronman, The Athletic, June 16
The Pick: Sascha Boumedienne, LHD
Boston University, NCAA; 6-foot-2, 183 pounds

Pronman is a touch higher on Boumedienne than the public-facing hockey world, ranking him 21st on his 2025 Draft list, as opposed to No. 26 on Elite Prospects' Consolidated Draft Board. But there are good reasons to like him. His Boston University team made the NCAA Championship game, and despite not turning 18 until January, Boumedienne wasn't outmatched playing in Hockey East.

He earned a lot of trust this year, and his coaches have confidence in him. According to Kim Brandvold, an assistant coach at BU, "[He'd] be a great pick for anyone. ... He's a real two-way defenseman [who] skates really well. ... I feel like he's an easy projection where you know you're drafting an NHL player."

Boumedienne only scored 13 points in 40 games at BU, but he just dominated his age group at the U18 worlds, finishing second in the tournament with 14 points in seven games. That points to an ability to gain more offense as he literally grows into his role.

The Athletic Staff, June 11
The Pick: Joshua Ravensbergen, Goalie
Prince George Cougars, WHL; 6-foot-5, 192 pounds

If the Wild had this pick, this choice would simply come down to how concerned they are about Wallstedt. Ravensbergen is considered the best goalie prospect in 2025, but maybe not the top-end prospect Wallstedt was in 2021. And as great of a prospect as Wallstedt was, playing in the SHL at age-17, we still have just seen him play 5 NHL games four years later. Junior hockey feels like a step further away than the SHL.

If Ravensbergen were the best player available, so be it. However, if the Wild made that pick, it'd be committing to a longer timeline than the front office -- and fanbase -- might stomach at this point.

Scott Wheeler, The Athletic, June 9
The Pick: Logan Hensler, RHD
Wisconsin, NCAA; 6-foot-2, 196 pounds

Interestingly, Hensler reads a bit like Jiříček. Both are large, right-shot defenders with muscle in the defensive zone. Jiříček's shot and puck skills give him an edge, perhaps, but Hensler has wheels that Jiříček can't match.

And like Jiříček at the NHL level, Hensler hasn't quite put everything together for the Badgers. "He impressed me in early viewings in his U18 season, and then left me wanting more pretty often in the second half before finishing better at U18 Worlds," noted Wheeler in his draft rankings. "I'm still waiting for him to jump off the page at me."

Mike Morreale, NHL.com (June 8)
The Pick: Jack Nesbitt, Center
Windsor Spitfires, OHL; 6-foot-4, 183 pounds

Nesbitt would have been a plus for the "Size Matters" kick that Guerin is on when it comes to centers. And Nesbitt is a true center, who, according to Morreale, "compares his style to Jamie Benn." For a GM that's looking for an "Eff You" attitude, that'd no doubt be music to Guerin's ears.

Nesbitt is smart, defensively responsible, and just wrapped up a 25-goal, 64-point campaign over 64 games. So why is he sitting at 20th in a mock draft?

Skating is the answer. Elite Prospects ranks his feet at a 4.0 on their 1-to-9 scouting scale. Pronman gives it a "Poor" rating, the worst in his arsenal. Still, Pronman likes the rest of his game enough to rank him 15th in the Draft Class, saying, "He can beat players one-on-one at a high rate off the rush and shows a lot of offensive creativity. ... He's a big man who plays heavy and is a reliable 200-foot player.

As a prospect, Nesbitt might compare to a left-shot Charlie Stramel. Here's how Elite Prospects ranked their tools coming into the Draft:

Skating: Stramel, 4.5; Nesbitt, 4.0
Shooting: Stramel, 4.5; Nesbitt, 5.0
Passing: Stramel, 5.0; Nesbitt, 5.0
Puckhandling: Stramel, 5.0; Nesbitt, 4.5
Hockey Sense: Stramel, 5.0; Nesbitt, 5.5
Physicality: Stramel, 6.5; Nesbitt, 7.0

There are differences, of course. For example, Stramel struggled in his draft year, while Nesbitt raised his stock. But while Stramel's pick drew controversy in 2023, the NHL (and Guerin) has only gotten hungrier for larger and larger centermen, and the Wild are finding that those players aren't readily available, even for teams that aren't in cap hell.

Are any of those players causing you to feel buyer's remorse on the Jiříček trade? That's up to you. But the field of players the Wild could have picked feels pretty identical to players in the Wild's system already.

Minnesota already has a pretty good offensive blueliner on the left side in Zeev Buium. Boumedienne doesn't feel like a drastically different prospect to, say, Carson Lambos or Jack Peart. They have a top goalie prospect in Wallstedt. As mentioned just now, Stramel already feels like a right-shot (that is, rarer) version of Nesbitt.

The Wild went out and got something different, something that you can't get with a 20th overall pick. Whether or not it works out is a different story, but you can argue that trading for Jiříček embraces a new kind of player rather than newer versions of past picks. The logic was there; now it must be proven on the ice.