For those who like to glimpse hockey’s future, Friday night’s opening round of the NHL Draft is about as exciting as it gets. But with no first-round pick in his possession, Minnesota Wild general manager Bill Guerin is planning for something different as the first 32 NHL prospects have their names added to the draft board in Los Angeles.
“Boring,” he said, of the team’s current plans to watch, not participate in, the opening round. “We follow, and if an opportunity presents itself to get into the first round, we will do it. But if it doesn’t, we won’t. We’re not worried about it.”
In late November of last season, Guerin shipped the team’s 2025 first-round pick and a few players to Columbus and got defense prospect David Jiricek in return. Jiricek, who is huge, young and a former Top 10 pick, got into just six games for the Wild —registering a goal and assist — and missed the last month of the season because of an abdominal injury. But Guerin has no qualms about missing Friday’s first round in order to get Jiricek in green and red.
“We feel that we already picked in getting David Jiricek,” Guerin said. “He was a very high pick, so we’re comfortable where we are.”
Outside interest in Rossi
After getting a fourth-round pick for Freddy Gaudreau in a trade with Seattle on Thursday, the Wild have five picks spread across Rounds 2-7, which begin Saturday morning. That could change, as teams commonly make trades while the draft is happening.
For example, former Wild first-rounder Marco Rossi is coming off the best offensive year of his career and a restricted free agent. After playing a top-line role during the team’s injury-ravaged regular season, Rossi was placed on the fourth line in the playoffs.
While he confessed to being irked by the perceived demotion, Rossi scored a pair of playoff goals and played the role that was asked of him. But the perception has been that the Wild are looking to move him, with Guerin seeking a plug-and-play NHLer, rather than a draft pick, for the diminutive Austrian.
On Thursday, Guerin pushed back on the idea that he’s eager to offload Rossi.
“We like Marco. Marco’s a good player,” Guerin said. “He had a good season, he’s a good teammate. There is this funny narrative out there that we don’t like him. That’s not the case.”
Having said all that, Guerin admitted that he has spoken to other teams about Rossi.
“Yeah, people have called,” he said. “But like I said, I’m not rushing this kid out of town, that’s for damn sure.”
Money to spend, carefully
Because he bought out the contracts of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter in the summer of 2021, Guerin lost a combined $14.7 million in salary cap space the past two seasons. That changes this year, as the buyout penalties slim down to a $1 million apiece for the former franchise cornerstones. And with the cap rising this season, Guerin finally has some real money to spend.
Guerin acknowledged that signing known commodities is simpler than assessing talent in the draft or making a trade, but he pledged discipline in investing Wild owner Craig Leipold’s money.
“It’s always easier just to go out and sign guys, but that’s not really the approach you want to have,” he said. “That’s kind of where you get yourself in trouble. It’s gotta be calculated, thought-out decisions. Try to get good value for the people that you’re signing. I’ve made mistakes, and I’ll make more, but I’m trying to limit them. We don’t want to get into contracts that we really regret.”
While the team’s primary focus is on acquiring forwards, with a defensive corps that Guerin has said is pretty well set, he added that he expects to find a goaltender. The depth among the Wild’s puck-stoppers is lighter with the retirement of Marc-Andre Fleury, and while they expect Filip Gustavsson and Jesper Wallstedt to be the team’s tandem in 2025-26, they are looking to add another option in the crease.
Kaprizov is top priority
Guerin also talked about star forward Kirill Kaprizov, who will be an unrestricted free agent after this season unless the Wild can sign him to a contract during the Wild’s one-year window of exclusive negotiation rights, That starts when free agency officially opens July 1. Guerin and Leipold have said that securing Kaprizov’s future in Minnesota is their top priority, with the owner vowing that no team will offer the high-scoring Russian more money or more years.
NHL-watchers have predicted that Kaprizov, 28, is coming off a season where he missed half the Wild’s games due to injury. But still posted a career-best 1.4 points per game average, and could command $15 million per year or more, up from the $9 million the Wild are currently paying him annually.
“We’ve talked. We don’t have to sign him on July 1. We can. I don’t see that happening, but you never know,” Guerin said. “We’d like to get it done as soon as we can. I’d love to do that. But you know, these things take time.”
And Guerin, as it currently stands, will have some time on his hands Friday night.
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