While the Minnesota Wild seem to be set on their NHL blue line for the coming season, general manager Bill Guerin and his hockey operations staff looked to the future of their defensive corps on Saturday.

With the 52nd overall pick in the NHL draft – the first selection owned by Minnesota – the Wild looked to Scandinavia, drafting sizable defenseman Theodor Hallquisth, who played last season with Orebro in the Swedish junior hockey league.

Hallquisth, who turned 18 earlier this month, is a right-shot defenseman who played for Sweden in the 2025 World Juniors, and may be coming to Xcel Energy Center in December to skate for his country again, when the Twin Cities hosts the tournament.

He had participated in an interview with the Wild at the combine prior to the draft, and said current Minnesota defenseman Jonas Brodin is a mentor but was still pleasantly surprised to hear his name called.

“Speechless, shocked, a bit taken by the situation,” Hallquisth said in a Zoom with reporters in the minutes following his selection. “It was a surreal feeling.”

Hallquisth played in seven games for Team Sweden at the 2025 World Juniors, and a dozen more in the nation’s top pro league. He said his game grew last season when he concentrated on making the simple plays and let the game come to him.

“I see myself as a two-way defenseman, try to focus on the fast and easy plays, which I think is one of my strengths,” Hallquisth said. “I of course want to contribute offensively as well, but I prioritize defense. I can play physical, and I’m pretty coachable in things.”

The Wild made another change on their blue line later in the day, trading veteran Declan Chisholm to Washington in exchange for Chase Priskie and a draft pick.

Priskie, 29, is a former captain at Quinnipiac who has played four NHL games. Chisholm played 95 games for the Wild over the past two seasons, but did not crack the lineup in the playoffs. He came to the Wild originally after being picked up off waivers from Winnipeg.

“(Chisholm) is a good player, he did a good job for us. We appreciate it,” Wild general manager Bill Guerin said of the restricted free agent. “Honestly, it’s one of the better waiver pickups I’ve seen in a while. Credit to our pro staff. Declan came in and played great for us. …The finances didn’t really match up to what we need.”

Guerin added that they have not decided what they will do with Priskie, who is an unrestricted free agent.

Minnesota picked Czech forward Adam Benak in the fourth round, 102nd overall. At just 5 feet 7, Benak still led Youngstown in the USHL offensively last season, averaging better than a point per game in his first season of North American hockey.

Known for his puck-moving skill, Benak had seven points in four games for Czechia at the 2025 World Juniors, and some experts said his size, or lack thereof, was the only thing keeping him out of the top two rounds.

“At first blush, you see the size, but he is a dynamic offensive player,” said Judd Brackett, the Wild’s director of amateur scouting. “Great vision, skill, speed, tenacious at that size, and he has continued to prove it. … It’s more than the body and more of the brain. He knows where to be and can stay out of harm’s way.”

Hallquisth is expected to be in St. Paul in the coming days to attend the Wild’s development camp. But as of now, he will not be back in the Twin Cities in late July for the World Junior Summer Showcase, with teams from the U.S., Canada, Finland and Sweden playing exhibition games at Ridder Arena in Minneapolis. Hallquisth said he has not been selected for the Swedish team.

“He’s clearly a two-way defenseman. He’s got the ability to get back on a puck, he’s got a good IQ,” said Brackett. “He feels pressure, he can find his first read and get out of his zone. But he’s got good engagement too. He plays with some bite, which is nice.”

It was the second time in as many years that the Wild have used their first pick on a defender, having grabbed University of Denver blueliner Zeev Buium with the 12th overall selection in 2024. Buium was one of the top players in college hockey last season, then signed with the Wild and made his NHL debut in their first round playoff series against Vegas.

Later in the fourth round, Minnesota grabbed a pair of Canadian forwards, selecting Lirim Amidovski from North Bay in the Ontario Hockey League at 121 and Carter Klippenstein from Brandon in the Western Hockey League at 123.

Their final pick of 2025 was another defenseman, Justin Kipkie from Victoria in the WHL, with the 141st selection.

Earlier on Saturday, Blaine defenseman Jacob Rombach became the first Minnesotan taken on Day 2 of the draft when Nashville selected the future Gophers blueliner 35th overall. It marked the 25th consecutive year, and the 51st time in 52 drafts, that at least one Gopher has been selected.

Gophers-bound defenseman Mace’o Phillips, from Minnetonka, went 80th overall to Calgary. Ten picks later, the Devils grabbed future Gophers forward Mason Moe, who is from Eden Prairie. Another future Gopher, forward L.J. Mooney, was picked by the Montreal Canadiens at 113.

Blake Vanek, a key winger on Stillwater’s run to the 2025 state title game and the son of former Gophers and NHL goal-scorer Thomas, went to Ottawa with the 93rd pick. He will play major junior hockey in Washington state next winter, and has not yet picked a college.

Theodor Hallquisth poses after being drafted by the Minnesota Wild with the 52nd overall pick during rounds 2-7 of the 2025 Upper Deck NHL Draft at Peacock Theater on June 28, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
New York Rangers’ Julien Gauthier (15) continues to compete with Florida Panthers’ Chase Priskie (22) for the puck after being tripped by Panthers’ Brandon Montour (62) during the first period of an NHL hockey game Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022, in New York. AP Photo/John Munson)

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Timberwolves general manager Matt Lloyd and president of basketball operations Tim Connelly have been scouting NBA draft prospects for years.

Last Saturday provided a throwback moment for the two of them.

Fenwick High School is a private school in Oak Park, Ill., and the site of the final step of Minnesota’s evaluation for the next piece of its franchise puzzle.

The Wolves had tracked Joan Beringer for about a year after being alerted to him by an assistant coach on the staff of Beringer’s Slovenian professional team, KK Cedevita Olimpija.

The Wolves assumed Beringer would be a second-division player who’d simply work on his skills this past season. Last year was, after all, the center’s first season playing pro basketball and just fourth in the sport overall.

“Every time we watched him we were just kind of blown away with his instincts,” Connelly said. “Defensively, he was covering five spots. He’s very raw, but really bright and has developed at a pace that, quite frankly, I’ve never seen for a guy that new to professional basketball.”

There’s a lot to learn from tape. But, ideally, if you’re going to spend a first-round pick on a prospect, you’d like to see them in person before doing so. But Beringer came to America later than some other international prospects, because his club was participating in the postseason.

Yet, through coordination with Beringer’s agent, Jelani Floyd, the Wolves were able to set up that Chicago-area workout in the days leading up to draft night.

“We had to travel to go see him,” Lloyd said. “But, at the end of the day, it was worth it.”

Because Beringer was passing every test. The Wolves put the 6-foot-11 big man through what Connelly described as a “really hard” workout. Minnesota pitted the 18-year-old against front office member Alonzo Gee, who played eight years in the NBA as a defensive role player, for 1 on 1 action. All Gee would talk about post-workout was how strong Beringer was.

“He couldn’t really hold him off,” Lloyd said.

Minnesota also was encouraged by how well Beringer was knocking down 15-foot jumpers during his workout. The team’s excitement about the Frenchman was growing by the minute.

“I have like grainy videos on my phone that I took at the workout, because I started to get so excited,” Lloyd said.

The Timberwolves posted a video from the workout on their social channels on Friday. At the end of the grueling workout, Connelly had to ask the prospect a question – could he dunk from the free-throw line?

Sure enough, Beringer took flight from the stripe and threw it down.

“That was memorable,” Connelly said.

Still, Connelly noted the chance to sit down and talk to prospects for even an hour or two is what he finds most valuable from face-to-face sessions. The Wolves fell more in love with Beringer’s drive and story. He’s a soccer striker who picked up basketball because he could no longer find soccer shoes that fit his growing feet.

He learned English from his teammates during his one season in Slovenia and has gained 24 pounds over the past year, alone.

“We’re not drafting him because of the story, but I was blown away relative to how little he has played and how far he has come,” Connelly said. “This is my 29th or 30th draft and he’s one of the more unique players I’ve ever seen.”

Minnesota believes he can become a dominant, switchable defensive center. The Rudy Gobert comparisons will be made because they share a home country and, now, a locker room. But think more along the lines of Brooklyn center Nic Claxton or Atlanta big man Onyeka Okongwu in terms of potential versatility on that end of the floor.

That ability to guard all over the floor is essentially a requirement on that end of the floor as you advance deeper into the postseason. Lloyd described Beringer as “a ball of clay.”

“I think he’s going to hang his hat on defensive versatility,” Connelly said. “Offensively, we don’t know what he is. Right now, he’s a sprint-the-floor, he’s a lob threat, he’s an offensive rebounder and garbage guy around the rim.

“But it’s really exciting, especially because we have such great coaches, is he’s really malleable. However we want to develop him, we can develop him. He’s coming from a great development school in Cedevita. Great, great coaches. It’s just exciting to see a guy who has all these crazy tools and really no bad habits.”

Lloyd said that in-person workout was “critical” to Minnesota closing the book on its evaluation of the center and knowing he was the team’s target. He noted the Wolves were “really excited” about Beringer when they left Illinois.

A source said Beringer was in the top 10 on Minnesota’s draft board. But would he get to No. 17?

“Quite frankly, we didn’t think he was going to be there. We were actively trying to make sure we were going to get him,” Connelly said. “So much of it is luck. The draft board, 16 really, really good players went before him, so that’s not to say that we got the best player by any stretch. But the draft board fell a certain way, and we were lucky we got our guy.

“He’s an unbelievable piece to add to our young core,” Connelly said. “I think he’s different than everything that we have.”

Joan Beringer poses for a photo with NBA commissioner Adam Silver after being selected 17th by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round of the NBA basketball draft, Wednesday, June 25, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)

By DAVE HOGG

DETROIT (AP) — Zach McKinstry had three hits, including one of Detroit’s four home runs, and the Tigers went on to beat the Twins 10-5 on Saturday afternoon.

Riley Greene, Kerry Carpenter and Gleyber Torres also homered for the Tigers.

Casey Mize (8-2) gave up two runs on five hits and one walk in 6 2/3 innings. He struck out five as he improved to 5-0 with a 2.00 ERA in six starts at home this season.

Bailey Ober (4-6) took the loss, allowing seven runs on 11 hits, including all four home runs. He walked one and struck out five.

The Tigers took a 1-0 lead in the second when Spencer Torkelson doubled and scored on a sacrifice fly. After Minnesota went ahead 2-1 on Buxton’s two-run homer in the third, Detroit tied the game in the bottom of the inning on Carpenter’s homer.

Colt Keith made it 3-2 in the fourth with a sacrifice fly and Torres followed with a two-run homer.

Greene led off the fifth with Detroit’s third home run to move the lead to 6-2, and McKinstry’s lead-off homer in the sixth made it a five-run game.

Carlos Correa hit a two-run homer in the eighth, but Wenceel Pérez hit a two-run double in the bottom of the inning.

Key moment

The Twins nearly took the lead in the second inning, but Carpenter leaped to keep a fly ball from Ryan Jeffers from clearing the left field fence.

Key stat

Buxton homered and stole a base in the same game for the 15th time, tying Gary Gaetti for third place on the Twins career list.

Up next

The teams finish the three-game series in the first Sunday night game at Comerica Park since 2017. Twins RHP Chris Paddock (3-6, 4.64) faces Tigers ace LHP Tarik Skubal (9-2, 2.29), who is 9-0 in his last 14 starts.

___

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Two lights guided the lives and actions of former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark: service and community.

Those who knew the couple repeated this theme in remembrances at a funeral mass Saturday morning at the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis that was attended by former President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Tim Walz and his wife, Gwen, and numerous other politicians, along with family, friends, and community members.

The Hortmans were slain on June 14 at their home in Brooklyn Park in an attack believed to be politically motivated.

“Two lights guided their life: service and community,” said Father Daniel Griffith, who presided over the mass. “Melissa manifested a servant’s heart in her work as a legislator.”

The couple lived a life devoted to community, he said. They loved having visitors to their home, which was jokingly called “The Hortman Hotel,” he said because everybody was welcome. They hosted monthly gourmet dinner groups with their law school friends and Mark held monthly card games. The couple also loved sitting on the deck of their home together for happy hour, he said.

“They shared a love for travel,” Griffith said. “Mark was a hobbyist with a curious mind” who loved mountain biking and making furniture.

“His children talked of his big smile, cheesy dad jokes, and having an indomitable spirit.”

Griffith also talked about Gilbert, a dog the couple had taken in to train as a service dog, but it became very attached to Melissa.

When it came time for him to become a service dog and leave the family, “Melissa was wrecked and emotional,” Griffith said. “The family wonders if maybe Gilbert failed the assignment on purpose so he could head back to the Hortman house.”

In speaking of the Hortman’s children, Colin and Sophie, Griffith called them a “beautiful reflection of their humanity, compassion and their sense of justice in every way, in their intelligence.”

He spoke about the statement that the Hortman’s children, Sophie and Colin, released after their parent’s were killed:

“Plant a tree, pet a dog, try a new hobby like Mark would have, stand up for justice and peace. The best way to honor their parents is to do something to make our community just a little better for someone else,” he said. “Mark and Melissa lived this reality.”

Gov. Tim Walz gave an eulogy after the mass, listing some of the ways that the couple made the state of Minnesota better, saying Melissa Hortman was the most consequential speaker in Minnesota history, a close friend, a mentor to him and the most talented lawmaker he had ever met.

Millions of Minnesotans now have better lives because Melissa and Mark chose public service and politics, he said.

“More kids in pre-K. Fewer in poverty. More kids in schools with the tools and teachers they need. Fewer with hungry students. More trees in the ground and clean energy coursing through the grid. Fewer roads and bridges at risk of failure,” Walz said. “More people in safe and secure housing. Fewer worrying about managing how to care for their loved ones. That’s the legacy that Mark and Melissa will leave behind for all Minnesotans.”

Walz painted a picture of the domestic life the couple led, mentioning Mark’s love of shooting pool and Melissa’s love of her garden where she “fussed over her lilies like they were a wayward member of that caucus,” he joked, eliciting laughter from the pews.

Their life outside of politics and public service took place in their kitchen where Mark “fed his sourdough starter, Melissa mixed the margaritas and baked the cakes and Gilbert sat there begging for scraps and the sound of that kitchen filled with laughter.”

Walz said Mark was proud of Melissa and her biggest supporter.

He said that the couple were an example of how people were at the heart of all politics.

“It’s easy sometimes to forget, for all its significance, that politics is just people,” he said. “That’s all it is. Just a bunch of human beings trying to do the best they can. Melissa understood that better than anybody I knew. She saw the humanity in every single person she worked with. And she kept things focused on the people she served. Her mission was to get as much good done for as many people as possible. It was the golden rule instilled in her by her father and the passion to serve she learned from her mother.”

Mark’s focus was people too, Walz said and he was a beloved colleague and friend to so many people.

Griffith said that the Hortman’s children gave him permission to speak about how the guiding principles the Hortmans lived by were “antidotes to our present afflictions” as a state and nation.

“Here in Minnesota we have been the ground zero place, sadly for racial injustice, the killing of George Floyd just miles from our church today,” Griffith said. “And now we are the ground zero place for political violence and extremism. Both of these must be decried in the strongest possible terms as they are a threat to human dignity and indeed, our democracy.

“Sadly racial disparity, some of the most acute in the country,  persists here in Minnesota with modest gains in some areas and widening gaps in others over the last five years. But friends, Minnesotans, this can be ground zero place for restoration and justice and healing, but we must work together and there is much more work to be done. Your presence here is a sign that we can do that work,” he said.

Melissa Hortman is the first woman to lie in state at the Capitol. It was also the first time a couple has lain in state at the Capitol, and the first time for a dog.

Before the Hortmans, 19 people had been accorded the honor. The first was Civil War veteran William Colvill in 1905.

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