One does not need much in the way of advanced statistics to confirm that playing defense at the top levels of hockey can be hazardous to your health.
For definitive proof, just take a look at the Minnesota Wild’s season statistics, which show that Tuesday’s home game versus Chicago was the sixth in a row played without the services of veteran blueliners Zach Bogosian and Jonas Brodin.
Wild coach John Hynes is hopeful that Bogosian could return relatively soon from his third stint on the injured list this season. Brodin, on the other hand, will miss the chance to skate for Team Sweden in the coming Winter Olympics and is not expected back on the ice for Minnesota until early March.
“It’s difficult,” Hynes acknowledged following the team’s morning skate on Tuesday. “It is special. That’s why the players have voted to go play in the Olympics. It is, you know, a best-on-best tournament. You don’t get a lot of opportunities to be able to represent your country.”
However, out of challenges come opportunities for the young defensemen in the Wild system that have been tasked with filling those roles. Already this season, prospects like David Spacek and Carson Lambos have made their NHL debuts for the Wild, and newcomer Matt Kiersted — originally from Elk River, Minn. — has logged four games for his home-state team.
The two mainstays among the next wave of defensemen getting ice time have been David Jiricek and Daemon Hunt.
In a strange twist, last season the Wild traded Hunt to Columbus as part of the package that brought Jiricek to Minnesota. At the end of training camp, when Columbus placed Hunt, 23, on waivers for purposes of sending him to their American Hockey League team, the Wild claimed him and brought Hunt back to Minnesota.
Hunt admits there was a bit of an odd relationship between Jiricek, 22, and him early in the season, knowing that they were once traded for each other.
“But now, half way through the season, I think it feels normal,” said Hunt, who had three assists in his first 21 games with the Wild this season. “He’s a good friend of mine now.”
Jiricek, who was a top-10 draft pick by Columbus, was prized enough by Wild general manager Bill Guerin that he sent Hunt, a first-round pick, and three other draft picks to the Blue Jackets to get the big Czech in green and red.
In Minnesota, Jiricek’s development has been slower than most had hoped. But after 22 games at the NHL level this season, Hynes is seeing some encouraging signs, especially when Jiricek lets his 6-foot-3, 210-pound frame do the work.
“He’s always been competitive. I think now it’s understanding how to use his body, when to use his body, how to have angles, how to use your leverage against elite players,” Hynes said. “I think the more opportunities you get to do that, whether it’s here or the American League level, you’re always going to get better and better. The good thing is he has a willingness to work on those things.”
For the Wild system’s young defensemen, those opportunities to work on their game, and learn, while playing at the NHL level are expected to help them be valuable additions as inevitable injuries happen to veterans. Time with the Iowa Wild is important for any developing player but there is no substitute for what they experience playing for Minnesota.
“Those games are highly competitive, but they’re not the NHL,” Hynes said of the work done for Iowa. “So, I think when you get your opportunities and you get a taste of the speed of the NHL, the strength of the NHL, the structure that teams and individual players play with, it does give you a better perspective of whether you’re truly ready or not, but also what you need to work on.”
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