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2022-23 Iowa Wild and Prospects Thread **


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New thread for discussion of Minnesota Wild minor leaguers and prospects.
AHL, OHL, WHL, ECHL, NCAA and anywhere in Europe.... if the Wild got a player there, talk about him here for the upcoming season!

For development camp, there is an existing thread specifically for that.
Enjoy.

Edited by TropicalFruitGirl26
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Wild added former Edina star Steven Fogarty, as well as Nic Petan, Brandon Baddock (who will likely take on the enforcer role vacated by Cody McLeod's retirement) and 6'7" right-shot defenseman Andrej Sustr who will add another veteran to Iowa who had parted ways with a bunch of them like Kyle Rau, Dominic Turgeon and others.  

 

The team also re-signed Turner Ottenbreit who was a good soldier on the back end for Iowa last season.  

 

So just thinking of the Iowa Wild Wild potentials, or who you have available as I see it.  

 

Forwards:

Steven Fogarty

Nic Petan

Brandon Baddock

Nick Swaney

Mason Shaw

Mitchell Chaffee

Vladislav Firstov

Alexander Khovanov

Sam Hentges

Joey Cramarossa

Adam Beckman

Damien Giroux

 

Defense:

Andrej Sustr

Simon Johansson

Ryan O'Rourke

Joe Hicketts

Dakota Mermis

Daemon Hunt

Turner Ottenbreit

 

Goaltenders:

Zane McIntyre

Jesper Wallstedt

Hunter Jones

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Wild Signs Forward Liam Ohgren to a Three-Year, Entry-Level Contract

 

Minnesota Wild General Manager Bill Guerin today announced the National Hockey League (NHL) club has signed forward Liam Ohgren to a three-year, entry-level contract. 

 

Ohgren, 18 (1/28/04), collected 58 points (33-25=58) and a plus-41 rating in 30 games with Djurgarden in the Swedish Junior League in 2021-22. He was named the Best Forward in Sweden's junior league last season after leading all players in goals, points and plus-minus rating.

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Interesting.  That didn't take long.  My guess is he'll go back to Sweden, help Djugardens' try to win their way back in the SHL (because they got relegated) and then be over after next season.  He crushed it in Sweden's junior circuit, I heard he didn't get much ice time in the SHL.  

 

He looked good at prospect camp.  

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Iowa signed a few more.  

 

W / C - Mitchell Balmas - Split time between Springfield and Worcester (ECHL)

F - Kevin Conley - After he finished up his senior year at Nebraska-Omaha, played for Reading (ECHL)

C / LW - Patrick Curry - Played with Grand Rapids (AHL) and Toledo (ECHL)

 

Most of these guys I'd say are probably fringe AHL'ers at best...probably going to help fill out the Heartlanders' roster.  All of them are on 1-year, 2-way deals.  

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(sigh)  See 2012.  This isn't the first time we've been 'ranked #1' and that was by people like the Hockey News.  Watching Wild Twitter's reaction over this website's 'ranking' was both revealing and sad.  Time will tell us if this ranking mattered one bit or if its something we know to mean nothing at all as it did in 2012 when Finnish Baby Jesus, Mikael Granlund was our franchise savior and our stockpile of prospects were going to make our team invincible.  Yea...about that...

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On 7/21/2022 at 9:12 AM, CreaseAndAssist said:

(sigh)  See 2012.  This isn't the first time we've been 'ranked #1' and that was by people like the Hockey News.  Watching Wild Twitter's reaction over this website's 'ranking' was both revealing and sad.  Time will tell us if this ranking mattered one bit or if its something we know to mean nothing at all as it did in 2012 when Finnish Baby Jesus, Mikael Granlund was our franchise savior and our stockpile of prospects were going to make our team invincible.  Yea...about that...

I think criteria to be ranked #1 among the prospects also is including our participation and results in Calder Cup AHL Playoffs. Since 2013 Iowa Wild existence (almost 10 years) , we practically we did not participate in playoffs. Only once we participated in 2019 and lost to Chicago Wolves team in 6 games. Interesting fact, Chicago Wolves won this 2022 year his 3rd Calder Cup. One of our former prospects Ivan Lodnia received the winner title too with that team. And now he has won 2 titles in OHL and AHL in his career. Why we wanted him to go directly to ECHL in 2021 without any tryout in AHL since 2018( he had only 6 tryout AHL games in 2017-2018 season) still is a huge question ? He refused to go there and signed with Chicago Wolves for 2021-22 season where he played 38 regular season games (4 goals;4 assists; +/-+1) and 11 playoffs games (4 goals; 1 assist;+/- +4); which is not bad for his 1st not full season play. Here are records for Chicago Wolves achievements:

Franchise history
1994–present Chicago Wolves
Championships
Regular season titles 1 IHL (1999–2000)
1 AHL(2021–22)
Division Championships 4 IHL (1997–98, 1998–99, 1999–00, 2000–01)
10 AHL (2004–05, 2007–08, 2009–10, 2011–12, 2013–14, 2016–17, 2017–18, 2018–19, 2020–21, 2021–22)
Conference Championships 3 IHL (1997–98,
1999–00, 2000–01)
5 AHL
(2001–02, 2004–05, 2007–08, 2018–19, 2021–22)
Turner Cups 2 (1997–98, 1999–2000)
Calder Cups 3 (2001–02, 2007–08, 2021–22)

 Very impressive for me comparing to our Iowa Wild results. Maybe something is wrong in our coaching staff culture there? Maybe players do not have any motivations at all to play persistently well there? Maybe that is the key in our poor overall results in Iowa?

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Iowa was robbed of the playoffs due to Covid which really sucks for that fanbase.  They had a loaded team but we'll never know how far that team would've went in the Calder Cup playoffs.  But this year?  Iowa didn't qualify and Rossi was there there pretty much the entire season.  

 

The Chicago Wolves always keep ringers in their lineup and have historically drawn among the best in all of the American Hockey League.  During one of the Covid years, the Wolves were a combination of the Carolina Hurricanes and Nashville Predators prospects.  They never are short on talent and they're usually a Calder Cup contender most seasons.  

 

Iowa has had some ringers; Gerald Mayhew, Cal O'Reilly but during those times the Wild's prospects didn't give them a whole lot of help.  Now it will be more of a prospect-led squad.  It will be interesting seeing how they do.  Hopefully Petan and Fogarty can provide more offense than Turgeon did, as I thought he was a big disappointment last year.  

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On 7/22/2022 at 3:33 PM, Alexandron said:

Very impressive for me comparing to our Iowa Wild results. Maybe something is wrong in our coaching staff culture there? Maybe players do not have any motivations at all to play persistently well there? Maybe that is the key in our poor overall results in Iowa?

 

 

I don't think it's so much the coaching staff as the prospects themselves. Historically the Wild haven't drafted well.

 

They've had a number of #1 picks that busted: AJ Thelen (2004), Benoit Pouliot (2005), James Sheppard (2006), Colton Gillies (2007), Tyler Cuma (2008), Zach Phillips (2011), Filip Johansson (2018). To a lesser extent, Nick Kunin was a #1 in 2017 and was shipped out for Nick Bonino (played one season and became a UFA), a 2nd rounder (#37-Marat Khusnutdinov) and a third rounder (#70-Traded to Detroit for Daemon Hunt).

 

And lot of their drafts haven't produced much. The Hockey Database has some nice table of their drafts, and it isn't pretty. If I remember right, there was an article a while back that ranked the various teams with their draft production, and the Wild were below the league average. 

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Very true.  But its also good reason for those who so amped up by the #1 ranking of some website, that history is not on the Wild's side that we really have the talent we think.  

 

You can toss Nick Leddy and Alex Tuch too...guys who were successful but never really helped the Wild even though we drafted them.  

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(shrugs)  Other than two games from Rossi, we haven't really see any of Brackett's kids he's drafted do anything for this team yet.  Honestly, on Twitter some Wild fans are wanting to name their kids after this guy thinking anyone he drafts is going to be pure gold.  

 

Is that optimism or desperation?  

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8 hours ago, CreaseAndAssist said:

(shrugs)  Other than two games from Rossi, we haven't really see any of Brackett's kids he's drafted do anything for this team yet.  Honestly, on Twitter some Wild fans are wanting to name their kids after this guy thinking anyone he drafts is going to be pure gold.  

 

Is that optimism or desperation?  

As of right now, my opinion is that it’s desperation. 

They’ve gotten some good players. But none that you could build a team around or one that will carry a team on his back when necessary. 
And the team has been blessed with a front office that tends to inflate the value of any prospects that are drafted. 
 

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Very nice article was published today at hockeywilderness.com regarding heavily participation of our Wild prospects at 2022 World Juniors. Our prospects will play for 5 teams (USA, Canada, Sweden, Czechia and Slovakia) at this tournament staring on Monday till August 20th.

https://www.hockeywilderness.com/2022/8/6/23288151/2022-world-juniors-minnesota-wild-prospects-nhl-hockey-canada-lambos-ohgren-yurov-russia

 

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Woopty doo.  While its good to think these nations think of more of our players as their respective countries' best, it doesn't guarantee they'll be great in the NHL.  Wilderness is a page written by homers.  They probably got really excited when one website said we had the best prospect pool too...

 

Good to see our guys playing more games but in the grand scheme of things...meh.  

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15 hours ago, Alexandron said:

Very nice article was published today at hockeywilderness.com regarding heavily participation of our Wild prospects at 2022 World Juniors. Our prospects will play for 5 teams (USA, Canada, Sweden, Czechia and Slovakia) at this tournament staring on Monday till August 20th.

https://www.hockeywilderness.com/2022/8/6/23288151/2022-world-juniors-minnesota-wild-prospects-nhl-hockey-canada-lambos-ohgren-yurov-russia

 

 

Pretty informative for someone such as myself who doesn't get a chance to watch a ton of prospects play.

Also, not overly opinionized like some of the nonsense floating around out there, and easy to read too due to being nicely written and presented.
Whether those players actually translate to the NHL of course, remains to be seen, but as an article simply pointing out who is playing where, very nice.

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Here is a schedule of the IIHF World Junior Championship 2022, which is starting today. An interesting fact - most our prospects(6 players) will present blue line (2 in US team; 3 in Canada team and 1 in Czechia team); and Sweden team will have from our prospects a goalie and LW forward ; and Slovakia will have a center forward from our prospects.

https://www.iihf.com/en/events/2022/wm20/schedule

 

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Hockey Canada
 
@HockeyCanada
· Aug 7
UPDATE | Ethan Del Mastro has been added to Canada’s National Junior Team for the 2022 IIHF World Junior Championship. Our Wild prospect Daemon Hunt is unable to participate due to injury.
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I am always surprised how Michael Russo is on the top of the news regarding our players and prospects everywhere. Besides 8 prospect players participating now at 2022 IIHF World Junior Championship for 5 teams he presented at his twit 3 nice goals (2 goals by Danila Yurov and 1 primary assist by Marat Khusnutdinov for other player goal) at Sochi Hockey Open 2022 (25 teams are involved at this annual pre-season tournament). Yurov is playing for U-25 (under 25 y.o.) team and Khusnutdinov is playing for SKA St. Petersburg team there. It seems Yurov has a powerful one timer shot as well as a pretty good vision where to shoot during his individual play in front of the net (his 2nd goal was beauty). He has lots of potential in my opinion. 

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Just found through Russo twit a short media interview with Danila Yurov:

Image

An interesting fact, some fans are predicting that sounds possible for Yurov comes sooner than later to the Wild club and a possibility to see the line  Kaprizov-Khusnutdinov-Yurov in 2024-2025 season. 

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On 8/9/2022 at 2:36 PM, Alexandron said:

I am always surprised how Michael Russo is on the top of the news regarding our players and prospects everywhere. Besides 8 prospect players participating now at 2022 IIHF World Junior Championship for 5 teams he presented at his twit 3 nice goals (2 goals by Danila Yurov and 1 primary assist by Marat Khusnutdinov for other player goal) at Sochi Hockey Open 2022 (25 teams are involved at this annual pre-season tournament). Yurov is playing for U-25 (under 25 y.o.) team and Khusnutdinov is playing for SKA St. Petersburg team there. It seems Yurov has a powerful one timer shot as well as a pretty good vision where to shoot during his individual play in front of the net (his 2nd goal was beauty). He has lots of potential in my opinion. 

 

Russo?  C'mon.  Even by his own admission he doesn't spend much time following them.  He defers to Wheeler and Pronman for stuff like that.  

 

Yurov has looked great.  Speaking of looking great, Servac Petrovsky had a pretty good tournament for a Slovakia team that is a midling team at best at the WJC's.  

 

Peart and especially Faber have been great.  Ohgren has a helper.  Lambos has been a scratch.   

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