As expected, the Minnesota Wild were quiet on the lengthy first night of the NHL Draft on Friday, with their opening round pick traded away last season. But that doesn’t mean the State of Hockey was without a presence as 32 building blocks of the league’s future had their names called in Southern California.

Woodbury defenseman Logan Hensler, after a standout freshman year at Wisconsin, will be headed back to Madison for another season of college hockey, but his on-ice future is in Ottawa after the Senators drafted him 23rd overall on Friday.

Interviewed on stage at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, Hensler admitted that he was nervous waiting for his name to be called, but was happy to be picked in the top 25.

With several members of his family in attendance, Hensler did interviews and talked to officials from the Senators remotely, as the NHL tried its first “decentralized” draft, with officials from all 32 teams based in their home cities, rather than in one arena as has been done traditionally. The new format had some glitches, with the first round lasting more than four hours, and technical difficulties preventing some picks from speaking live to officials from the teams that drafted them.

“I think we all missed the old style,” said Wild general manager Bill Guerin, after his hockey operations team spent an evening he called “long and slow” in the team’s war room set up in the locker room at TRIA Rink. “I think the most important thing is what it’s like for the players. It’s not about us, it’s about these kids getting drafted and their experience.”

After playing prep hockey at Hill-Murray as a sophomore, Hensler spent two seasons with USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program in Michigan, then posted a dozen points as a college hockey rookie with the Badgers last season. With celebrity hockey fans announcing each team’s pick, Ottawa native and once-popular comedian Tom Green called Hensler’s name.

With the 29th pick, Chicago traded up to select two-sport Edina High School star Mason West, who is committed to the Michigan State hockey program, but will also be the Hornets’ starting quarterback as a prep senior this fall, before playing hockey for Fargo in the USHL.

On a night where trades were rare, nothing materialized that enticed the Wild to try to get back into the Friday night fray. They will pick 52nd overall in the second round on Saturday, with the picks beginning at 11 a.m. CDT. Guerin admitted that they weren’t close on any potential moves into the first round on Friday.

“I’m not too surprised. Everybody needs players and it just seems like a difficult year to make deals,” he said.

After weeks of speculation about their assorted offers to move down, the New York Islanders took their draft lottery winnings and invested them in defense, grabbing Matthew Schaefer with the first overall pick. The 17-year-old who spent limited time last season on the blue line for the Erie (Pa.) Otters of the Ontario Hockey League due to illness and injury, becomes the fifth player selected first overall by the Islanders, and the first since John Tavares in 2009.

Schaefer, who lost his mother to breast cancer two years ago, donned an Islanders jersey on stage, kissing the purple cancer ribbon on the jersey and pointing to the sky in honor of his mother.

Earlier in the day, the Islanders traded veteran defenseman Noah Dobson, their 2018 first round pick, to Montreal in exchange for a pair of picks later in Friday’s first round and forward prospect Emil Heineman.

San Jose used the second pick on major junior forward Michael Misa, while Chicago grabbed Swedish center Anton Frondell. Boston College standout forward James Hagens, predicted by many to be a top-three pick, fell to seventh and will stay in Boston after the Bruins grabbed him.

With the 20th pick, which originally belonged to the Wild prior to their trade for defenseman David Jiricek in November 2024, the Columbus Blue Jackets took the first goalie off the board, grabbing 18-year-old Russian Pyotr Andreyanov.

Related Articles

NHL: Tentative CBA agreement would mean more games, shorter contracts

NHL Draft: After ‘boring’ 1st round, things should get interesting for Wild

NHL Draft: Woodbury native Logan Hensler ready to write next chapter

Wild ship Freddy Gaudreau to Seattle for a draft pick

NHL Draft 2025: What Wild fans need to know

Napheesa Collier returned with a 26-point, seven-rebound, six-assist effort, including a couple huge baskets in overtime and the Lynx scored 10 of the final 12 points to win 96-92 in Atlanta.

Kayla McBride finished with 18 points, including making all six free throws, Courtney Williams responded with 16 points and eight assists, and Bridget Carleton had a season-high four 3-pointers as part of a 14-point outing.

Collier, who missed the last two games with lower back soreness, came up clutch late.

Down by four in overtime, Williams scored on a pullup jumper and, after an Atlanta miss, a perfect pass from Williams set Collier up for a layup to even things back up with 1:45 to play.

The Lynx tied a season high with 30 assists.

A turnaround, fadeaway jumper by Collier gave the Lynx a lead with 1:11 left in the extra session.
Atlanta though they’d have a chance to tie it when Alanna Smith was whistled for a foul with 20.5 seconds left; however, the call was overturned after a lengthy video review. A pair of McBride free throws put the Lynx up by four.

The Dream scored inside at the other end, but McBride made a couple more from the charity stripe with 13.6 seconds left.

The Lynx (13-2) tied a season high with 13 makes from deep and avoided losing back-to-back games for the first time this season.

Long-distance shooting is what kept Minnesota in the game because the Dream (10-6) were able to impose their will in the paint, scoring a season-high 52 points in close and had a 40-28 rebounding advantage. Atlanta was 22 of 27 from the free-throw line. Minnesota was 17 of 18.

Jordin Canada split a pair of Lynx defenders for a driving layup with 3:49 in regulation to play and the Dream, who trailed by as many as 17 in the second quarter, had its biggest lead at 82-75.

A McBride triple got the Lynx within 84-82 with 1:29 left. Brionna Jones (putback) and Collier (layup) swapped baskets and Collier added a couple free throws with 21 ticks left.

The Dream had one last try to win it in regulation, but smothering defense by McBride forced Rhyne Howard into a desperation, off-balance long jumper.

Related Articles

No Collier, no problem as Lynx roll to 12-1

WNBA: Scoring-leader Napheesa Collier ranks second in fan all-star voting

‘Sickening’ day casts pall on dominant Lynx victory

Natisha Hiedeman’s 3 with 5.5 seconds left keeps Lynx unbeaten

WNBA set for new season with Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese leading the way

DETROIT  — The Twins spent the month of June looking for some stability from their starting rotation after watching a pair of pitchers go down with injuries. It’s nearly the end of the month but finally, for three straight games at least, they seem to have found some.

Joe Ryan went out and dealt six scoreless innings on Wednesday. Simeon Woods Richardson followed with five zeros of his own on Thursday. And on Friday, after the Twins decided to start David Festa rather than use an opener, the lanky righty tossed 5 2/3 shutout innings, lifting the Twins to a 4-1 win over the first-place Detroit Tigers in the series opener at Comerica Park in a game that was delayed for 21 minutes by the threat of rain.

Festa, who gave up eight runs in his last outing and entered the day with a bloated 6.39 earned-run average, allowed just two hits in his outing. The second one was the last pitch he threw in his start, which was one of the longest in his career. Festa struck out six batters in his start and walked none, after walking three in each of his last two starts.

The starter received some run support in the fourth inning when Matt Wallner and Brooks Lee hit back-to-back two-out doubles. That was one of two runs Lee would drive in in a game that was strong for him both offensively and defensively.

The Twins scored their second run of the night in the fifth when Byron Buxton smacked a pitch over the middle of the plate out to left field for his team-leading 18th home run of the season.

Buxton scored the Twins’ fourth run of the day, as well, drawing a walk in the seventh inning and then advancing to second on a stolen base. After Trevor Larnach’s groundball moved him over, Buxton raced home to score when Willi Castro laid down a rare sacrifice bunt.

Detroit scored one run in the loss as reliever Griffin Jax worked his way into and out of trouble in the eighth inning. But were mostly quieted, marking the third straight game that Twins pitchers have given up one or fewer runs.

Related Articles

Twins know American League Central now runs through Detroit

Simeon Woods Richardson deals, Twins’ bats explode in win over Mariners

Twins star Royce Lewis will DH for Saints in rehab assignment

Twins shut out Mariners, ending losing streak

Twins pitching staff searching for answers amid tough stretch

Those “Naz Reid” tattoos will be relevant long after the ink has dried.

The multi-faceted big man will stay with Minnesota through at least the 2029 season after agreeing on a new deal with the Timberwolves on Friday.

It’s a five-year, $125 million deal for Reid, with a player option for the fifth season.

Reid had a $15 million player option on his current contract that he declined, as expected, before agreeing to the new contract. The 25 year old was otherwise set to enter free agency next week.

But Minnesota was determined to not allow that for the fan favorite. An undrafted free agent, Reid is the best development story in the franchise’s recent history. An undrafted free agent, Reid has taken strides forward every year, cementing himself as part of the team’s long-term core alongside the likes of Anthony Edwards and Jaden McDaniels.

Reid won the 2023-24 NBA Sixth Man of the Year award and has developed into becoming of the league’s best 3-point shooting big men who continues to grow his offensive skillset. There were times in which the Wolves were short handed this season that Reid was able to flash his ability to have an offense run through him and even create off the dribble.

Where that skillset ultimately leads Reid in terms of on-court trajectory still remains to be seen.

This deal makes it next to impossible that Minnesota will be able to keep both Julius Randle and Nickeil Alexander-Walker while staying under the second apron. But the likely candidate to go this offseason was always Alexander-Walker, who’s an unrestricted free agent with young wing options waiting for their turn behind him.

The chances are, Randle will be on next year’s roster. Which could very well mean Reid is again in a sixth-man role.

That was something Reid noted at season’s end that he’d have to think about. He said he “100%” views himself as a starter in the NBA.

“You grow as a player, you grow as a person, you kind of want to fill in different shoes,” he said. “But if you want to be in a winning position, sometimes you might have to sacrifice. So I definitely view myself as a starter, but things happen, things change. You never know what’s ahead of you until you talk about it and until you go through it.”

At the very least, Reid will now be paid as a starter. The hefty salary shows Minnesota negotiated in good faith in an offseason in which many prospective free agents are expected to get squeezed financially as few NBA teams have legitimate space under the salary cap.

Yet the Wolves seemingly paid Reid his worth, which helped get the deal done ahead of the June 30 start of free agency. That guaranteed a franchise favorite stayed in Minnesota, and paints a clear picture of where the Timberwolves are financially heading into next week’s NBA rat race.

Related Articles

Naz Reid intends to re-sign with the Timberwolves, but wants to do more

Is this lineup the Timberwolves’ clutch-time solution?

Target Center was a house of horrors for Timberwolves in last year’s playoffs. Can they turn that around?

Timberwolves Playoffs: Reserves again ignite team’s best play

Pack of rabid Timberwolves harass Lakers en route to Game 1 rout