When Will It Start To Click For David Jiricek?

David Jiricek probably would have liked to have drawn in for the Minnesota Wild’s home opener against the Columbus Blue Jackets on October 11. Instead, the Wild stuck him in the press box four booths down from Don Waddell, the general manager who traded him after 53 games. 

While they removed Jiricek from the ice, they paired him with Alex Goligoski in the rafters. Goligoski is the retired 17-year NHL veteran from Grand Rapids, who spent his final three seasons with the Wild. 

Officially, he’s a player development advisor with the Wild. Unofficially, he was Jiricek’s hype man that night. Goligoski sat next to Jiricek and coached him up for two periods during Minnesota’s 7-4 madcap loss.

The Athletic detailed their exchange, and it’s worth reading in full if you haven’t already. However, I’d like to highlight a point Goligoski made. 

He’s actually at a very similar place to where I was one time in my career when I started, but I had the benefit of not being rushed to the NHL. 

[When] I was drafted, I was 21 when I went to my first NHL camp. And I didn’t make that team, but I had no expectation to make that team. He was kind of thrown right into the fire as a high pick going to Columbus. 

The team wasn’t very good. They were young, and they were just playing their young guys, and I mean, in my opinion, that’s not the place to do it.

Generally speaking, I’ve maintained that the Wild should err on the side of playing young players, especially when the worst of the Zach Parise-Ryan Suter buyout penalties. They weren’t going to win in the playoffs with $15 million in dead cap space. Why not focus on player development?

It goes without saying that the Wild shouldn’t overexpose their young players. Still, I always felt their reluctance to play Matt Boldy in 2021 and Marco Rossi a year later, and some of their other young players, had more to do with the frustrations of coaching inexperienced talent. 

It’s probably a testament to Midwest sentimentality that we assign cardinal virtues to Bill Guerin and the people he's hired to work for him. He’s exercising prudence by being patient with young players! It’s only just that he prioritize the veterans!

However, Almighty Bill is probably succumbing to the seven deadly sins. He has too much pride to lord over a losing team. The Wild pay him dearly to preside over their team, and he wants to ensure job security after buying out Parise and Suter. Remember the “five-year plan” he devised five years into his tenure?

Cam Talbot – or at least his agent – has experienced his wrath. So have reporters who dare question why his team can’t get out of the first round of the playoffs, or why he didn’t bolster the roster at last year’s deadline when Minnesota’s division rivals did. In 2023, the league investigated whether he verbally harassed a Wild employee. (Wild management determined that Guerin had not committed a fireable offense.)

Patience? Temperance? I don't buy it.

Back to Goligoski, who sits in on coach's meetings with John Hynes and his staff, and who's vision for young players aligns with the organization's.

Goligoski spent his age-21 season in the AHL and played only three games with the Pittsburgh Penguins the following year. However, Pittsburgh took Goligoski in the second round, 61st overall, in 2004. They likely had different expectations for Goligoski than Minnesota has for Jiricek, who Columbus took sixth overall in 2022.

The Wild traded a haul to Columbus for Jiricek:

• A 2025 first-round pick (top-5 protected)
• Their third- and fourth-round picks in 2026, and a second-rounder in 2027
• Prospect Daemon Hunt

Columbus sent back their 2025 fifth-round pick, and the Wild have since claimed Hunt off waivers. Still, they mortgaged much of their future for the 21-year-old defenseman. The package they sent to the Blue Jackets indicates they’re invested in Jiricek. However, given how he’s played in Minnesota, the question is as much whether they eventually try to recoup value on the trade becomes as much as it is whether he becomes a top-pair defenseman.

“As a defenseman, you’re going to hit your prime at whatever, 27, 28,” Goligoski told The Athletic. “So at 21, David’s not even close.”

Goligoski is moving the goal posts in his comments above. Jiricek is nearly 22, and athletes are typically in their physical prime between the ages of 26 and 32. Goligoski isn't that far off. Still, had eight goals and 29 assists at age 23, broke out with 14 goals and 32 assists at 24, and had 12 goals and 23 assists at age 32.

As with many athletes, Goligoski’s production began to decline at age 33. However, he lasted in the league until age 38 because of his hockey IQ, which he is passing on to Jiricek and Minnesota’s defensemen as a development coach.

For context, Jared Spurgeon broke into the league at 21 and played his best hockey between ages 25 and 33. Meanwhile, many of the league’s best defensemen have been productive at a young age. 

Zach Bogosian had nine goals in 47 games as an 18-year-old in 2008-09 and 10 goals in his age-19 season. However, his production steadily tailed off before [italics] he reached his physical prime. Zeev Buium played in the playoffs after leaving Denver University as a 19-year-old last year. He has six points in eight games. 

Brock Faber broke into the league at age 20 and had 18 goals and 58 assists in his age-21 and 22 seasons. He hasn’t been productive this year, but that’s likely because the Wild played him too many minutes last season.

Player development is non-linear, and each prospect has their own trajectory. Still, it’s fair to judge Jiricek by his age-22 projection, given his draft pedigree and what the Wild gave up to get him. 

He’s a Schröedinger cat. He may end up like Faber, the product of an aggressive trade that worked out for the Wild. Jiricek may also become a bust like Calen Addison, who Guerin traded Jason Zucker for despite working for the Pittsburgh Penguins when they drafted and developed Addison.

The Wild also got a first-round pick in the trade, which they used on Carson Lambos. Zucker scored 50 goals in 172 games for Pittsburgh. His 89 goals in 321 games since leaving Minnesota nearly match his totals for the Wild (132 goals in 456 games). Minnesota drafted Lambos, a defenseman, 26th overall in 2021, and he hasn't made his NHL debut.

We won’t know for sure whether the Jiricek trade worked out until he turns 24 or 25. Still, it’s fair to express concern about a player who they’re healthy-scratching a year after they traded a haul for last year. He may become an impact defenseman, but they may also try to flip him to recoup any value they can in a few years.

More pertinently, it’s only natural to question Minnesota’s ability to identify and develop young talent, which will be vital to its success this season and in the future.