I think its time for a Kanye West moment. You know, the grab the mic and steal the spotlight because you’re impatient and feel you have something to say, “Now that don’t kill me, Can only make me stronger, I need you to hurry up now, ’cause I can’t wait much longer, I know I got to be right now, ’cause I can’t get much wronger, Man I’ve been waitin’ all night now, That’s how long I’ve been on you” are the lyrics to Kanye’s song Stronger which sort of represents how I feel about my long wait for the draft as well as the relative drafting history of the franchise. The moment created is a bit awkward and even though your intentions were for the best you end up coming off like an arrogant ass. I am not looking to steal the thunder from whoever the Minnesota Wild select tonight at the 2011 NHL Entry Draft but I have to admit I have a little anxiety about who this team is going to pick. After the last six or so seasons the first round has for the most part has been a practice in futility. The team’s 1st round history over that time AJ Thelen, James Sheppard, Benoit Pouliot, Colton Gillies, Tyler Cuma do not make me feel all that confident the team is going to make the right move. The Wild did part ways with Tommy Thompson (thankfully) who was largely responsible for this series of awful selections and at least so far Minnesota looks like it made the right move when it picked Mikael Granlund in last year’s draft as this YouTube clip would indicate. Brett Flahr and Wild General Manager Chuck Fletcher also did fairly well with their three 2nd round selections in Brett Bulmer, Johan Larsson, and Jason Zucker. So if I could have my Kanye West moment I’d run up and steal the mic from the podium tonight just before Fletcher or Flahr announces the Wild’s selection and I’d say, “great job last year with Granlund guys, but let me just say on the behalf of the State of Hockey just don’t screw this up ok?” No pressure?!?!
You better believe there is a lot of pressure on the Wild making this pick in the State of Hockey as fans watched yesterday as Philadelphia made one summer’s worth of moves in the span of a few others by dispatching big contracts in team captain Mike Richards to Los Angeles and Jeff Carter to Columbus for a 1st round pick (8th Overall this year), 2nd round pick (from L.A.), 3rd round pick (from Columbus) along with Jakub Voracek, Wayne Simmonds and prospect Brayden Schenn as they freed up room to sign goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov to a 9-year, $51 million deal. I don’t think anyone in Minnesota is expecting Fletcher to make moves like that, but the pressure is clearly there. The team sent hometown head coach Todd Richards packing after another middling season and replaced him with the seemingly more intense Mike Yeo and more recently the Wild GM made a statement that the team better make sure its in shape when it reports to training camp or there will be some consequences. Get the feeling the honeymoon is over? From this Wild fan’s perspective, its about damn time but at the end of the day we’ll see if these were merely words or whether it will be translated into action if a player / players don’t show up to camp in shape. I have little doubt that some of the players who had been used to having things go their own way may test Yeo and Fletcher to see if they have the resolve to follow through afterall the last bench boss responded to poor effort by giving optional practices and with that example how intimidated would you be by authority figures talking big? Anyways, back to the draft the Wild are feeling pressure there as well as the team again finds itself still relatively close to the cap ceiling despite the fact the league raised the roof by another $4 million (to about $64 million). So that leaves the draft as the one avenue to improve the team; probably not for the short term but to try to improve the prospects of a bright future. Last year they seemed to take some positive steps, but with another draft comes another opportunity to make some more ground on the competition. The Wild have six picks going into draft night barring any trades that may take place. There certainly have been rumors about the team shopping Brent Burns and others hoping to perhaps gain some more selections but no news just yet. Without question, the first round selection is where the most intense focus as well as the greatest hopes of finding that elusive impact player that the team has so often failed to acquire in the draft and thus left the team reaching for free agency to fill the holes made by those errors in judgment. At this point the Wild have the 10th Overall pick (1st round), no 2nd round pick (the Chuck Kobasew trade), 71st Overall (3rd round), 101st Overall (4th round), 131st Overall (5th round), 161st Overall (6th round), and 191st Overall (7th round). So who will the Wild pick? We’ve seen the mock drafts and there are lots of names thrown around, some more frequently than others.
Since the draft was in St. Paul I traveled back to my home state to watch the drama unfold. I attended the draft with my partner in crime Theresa and wild.com’s KissArmyMan (Bruce) where we enjoyed our seats in club level. Our goal is to give a fan like coverage of how we experienced these events as they happened, provide analysis and then our opinions on the selections. Also included is are the rankings from the Hockey News (where applicable), International Scouting Service (ISS), HockeyProspect.com, and the NHL’s Central Scouting Final Ranking (CSS) to hopefully give you the fan a fair perspective of where this prospect was rated prior to their selection. The wait is finally over and the Minnesota Wild selects…
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1st Round (10th Overall)
Defenseman – Jonas Brodin ~ Farjestad (Eliteserien)
Height: 6’1″ Weight: 165lbs Shoots: Left
The Hockey News’ ranking: 22nd ISS ranking: 20th HockeyProspect.com ranking: 20th CSS ranking: 3rd ranked European skater
2010-11 Stats: 42GP 0G 4A = 4pts 12 PIM’s
Talent Analysis: Brodin is a smooth skating blueliner with a powerful stride uses this to his advantage as he maintains good gap control and angles off opposing forwards effectively. The Karlstad-native has great hockey sense and is a calm and poised puck mover who can quite elusive in that capasity. Brodin is not an overly physical player and could stand to add muscle to his wiry frame. He is an excellent tape-to-tape passer and has a good accurate shot from the point that makes him effective enough to man the power play or the penalty kill. The Swedish blueliner’s numbers will not wow you but most scouts believe he’s capable of producing more when given more ice time than he was as a mere 18-year old playing in the nation’s top men’s league. While playing a lesser role with Farjestad, Brodin opted to make simple plays with the puck instead of being too cute or attempting more high-risk, high-reward kinds of plays. Scouts are very high on Brodin’s potential. ISS described Brodin as a top 3 defender who can play in all situations; and described his strengths as being a flawless skater, defensive lane control, and poise and intelligence. Areas where they felt Brodin needed to improve were his boldness with the puck, and his aggressiveness and physicality. ISS also compared Brodin’s game to Pittsburgh’s Kris Letang while TSN compared him to Alexander Edler.
Our take: As soon as Wild GM Chuck Fletcher made the pick I turned to Bruce and said, “Brodin?!?! WTF!” Bruce just shook his head and said “I don’t get it” and despite some of the cheers around us you quickly got the vibe from fellow Wild fans that immediately turned to the nearest Wild fan as if to say “Brodin who”? The pick seems rather puzzling given the fact the Wild are fairly deep with prospect defenseman. Tyler Cuma, Jared Spurgeon, Marco Scandella, Justin Falk, Nate Prosser, Sean Lorenz, Josh Caron, Colton Jobke, and Chay Genoway cover a wide variety styles and more than a few fit the non-physical two-way defender type that best describes Brodin’s game which begs the question why add another? With the surprise 7th Overall selection of the Winnipeg Jets for taking Mark Schiefele the window seemed to be wide open for the Wild to nab a decent scoring forward at this spot. The Flyers surprised me a little by taking Sean Couturier 8th Overall but there were still many skilled, speedy goal scoring forwards available. When NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said the Wild were on the clock you couldn’t help but noticed the disorganized chaos of the Minnesota table. You got the sense deals were being floated about and the Wild was attempting to consider some of them; and for a moment you thought the Wild were going to make a trade. Instead they got up and put forth a baffling and confounding selection. It seemed as though the Wild ignored better possibilities at defense. If the Wild wanted to add an offensively skilled blueliner why not take Nathan Beaulieu or Ryan Murphy? If anything the Wild’s collection of defensive prospects has an abundance of finesse-focused puck moving types, so would it not have been a more prudent move to add a relatively mobile defensman with some offensive skills and a whole lot of nasty to his game in Duncan Siemens (who was also available)? With the exception of Caron and to a lesser degree Falk none of those defenseman are mean or overly physical. I could not understand why would choose to add a relatively weak, finesse defenseman who had disappointing offensive totals despite his great mobility? Didn’t the Wild already draft a blueliner with that skillset and subsequent production with Tyler Cuma? The more Bruce and I thought about it and discussed the thought process (or lackthereof), the more annoyed I got. Bruce eventually made the eerie prediction of the night when he stated, “Well the only reason you get a guy like Brodin is if you’re going to sell Burns, he must be gone.” Little did I or anyone else know (other than the Wild’s management) that Bruce was 100% right. I hope Brodin turns out to be an effective NHL blueliner but at this point this was a pick that both confused and disappointed me.
As Bruce and myself stewed over the Wild’s selection of Jonas Brodin, they decided to make a splash by dispatching Brent Burns and a 2nd round pick in the 2012 draft to the San Jose Sharks for sniper Devin Setoguchi ($3 million cap hit for the next 3 years) promising college prospect Charlie Coyle (6’2″, 207lbs forward who had 7 goals and 19 assists for Boston University in 37 games) and the Sharks 1st round pick in this year’s draft 28th Overall. That turned the draft into more of a waiting game and I sat their hoping somehow the Wild would manage to land a speedy scorer to help make up for the bizarre selection at #10. Losing Burns hurts, and I know its a move that will be unpopular with many Wild fans who felt he really started to put it together in his career best season but obviously the organization didn’t think it would be able to sign him to a reasonable contract. Needless to say it will be a trade that will be heavily scrutinized in the years to come but only time will tell if the Wild made the right move. I kept watching the selections, and as blueliners like Connor Murphy, Joe Morrow and Oscar Klefbom I thought there was a chance the Wild could still land Peterborough’s Matt Puempel but it wasn’t meant to be as he was selected 24th Overall by the Ottawa Senators.
Meanwhile it was a lot of glitz and glam near my seats in club level which were located next to the Headwaters restaurant. Some of the 1st round selections made their way to the area and were signing autographs and posing for pictures. Players like Ottawa’s Mika Zibanejad, Boston’s Dougie Hamilton, Colorado’s Gabriel Landeskog and Montreal’s Nathan Beaulieu and the newest member of the Wild Jonas Brodin were all hanging out and taking peeks to see how the other picks were turning out. Watching Beaulieu’s jaw drop at the word that the Wild had traded Brent Burns was somewhat intriguing. Zibanejad especially, was far more interested in watching the rest of the draft unfold than all of the fan commotion going on all around him. There were other hockey celeb sightings in the area such as Mats Sundin who was probably enjoying the fact he was fairly anonymous at this event while fans swarmed these young players for their signature instead of his clamoring for his. As the final few teams were making their selections one player who I started to get excited about the possibility of drafting was the diminutive but immensely skilled U.S. National Development Program stud Rocco Grimaldi. He was still available when the Wild contingent made its way to the draft podium so my hopes were up. So the Wild’s next selection was…
1st Round (28th Overall)
Center/Right Wing – Zack Phillips ~ Saint John Sea Dogs (QMJHL)
Height: 6’1″ Weight: 181lbs Shoots: Right
The Hockey News’ rank: 9th ISS rank: 34th HockeyProspect.com rank: 37th CSS rank: 15th North American (skater)
2010-11 Stats: 67GP 38G 57A = 95pts 16 PIM’s +48
Talent Analysis: Phillips is a player with outstanding hands and on-ice vision. He is a great passer who has reasonable strength which he uses effectively near the boards. The Fredericton, New Brunswick-native can play both center and right wing, and is an adept finisher and passer while moving with the puck. He can be physical but his overall physical play is inconsistent. His biggest weakness is his skating which is average at best; and this was very evident at the Memorial Cup Tournament but despite that he still was one of the tourney’s top scorers. Phillips has a decent shot but does most of his scoring in and around the crease. He is just average defensively and is only a player you would use on your top two lines. His skating makes him a high-risk, high-reward kind of player but he has demonstrated a great ability to finish his chances and is one of the better goal scorers available in the draft.
Our Take: This was a pick where I understood the intent but again left me wanting more. I know that its tough to be too picky when you’re picking 28th Overall, but the Wild may be kicking themselves over other players they passed on to select the slow moving Saint John sniper. The Wild passed on power forward Brandon Saad, speedy Dane Nicklas Jensen and mighty mite Rocco Grimaldi or the stickhandling wizard that is fellow Sea Dog Tomas Jurco would’ve provided the Wild with both scoring AND speed. I watched Phillips rather closely in the Memorial Cup and he’s not just slow he’s Andrew Brunette slow. While Brunette certainly carved out his niche in the NHL and put up respectable numbers, his style of play limits just about any line he’s on to playing a methodical cycling style of hockey. That sort of game flies in the face of the up-tempo brand of hockey that Wild management worked so hard to sell to fans at the end of the Jacques Lemaire-era. When Fletcher made this pick I immediately chimed, “#$ck, #$ck, #$ck, #$ck” and I looked over at Bruce who was shaking his head disapprovingly as the team passed up on a chance to add a scorer with an element of speed to his game. The Wild’s want to be an up-tempo team has been sabotaged by its own lack of team speed. Its tough to play a forecheck when your players are not nearly fast enough to win the races to the puck against the opposing defenseman. The endless dump in’s simply become a futile series of turnovers which deprive the Wild of momentum and only serve to give fans, coaches and players a significant level of frustration as their lack of wheels do not allow them to accomplish what they wish to. I have little doubt Phillips can score points when given the right opportunity but how many more chances will he miss out on simply because he lacks the mobility to get into scoring position when he needs to be there to pounce on those chances? Sorry Chuck, at this point it looks like another miss to me.
Time will of course tell us just how good or bad this draft was; and of course we have six more rounds to go but with two apparent misses so far the chances of this draft turning around are not looking all that promising. Day two hopefully gives Wild fans more hope.
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