Well, the Wild went into the first round of the draft with one simple mandate: take the best player available.
With both Cam Fowler and Brandon Gormley still available when the Wild came up to pick at No. 9, there was a lot of discussion at the draft table.
Now, I wasn’t sitting anywhere near the draft table, but I imagine that the conversation had something to do with whether to take the “best player available” or whether to draft to the team’s needs.
Fortunately, the Wild’s front office blinked and a less than enthusiastic Chuck Fletcher announced that the Minnesota Wild selected forward Mikael Granlund from HIFK Helsinki.
Granlund, a 5’10”, 180 pound center, averaged nearly a point per game in his rookie season for HIFK, playing as a 17-year-old in a league of men.
He is an exceptional playmaker and a player with terrific hockey sense—a player that should thrive under Richards’s up tempo, aggressive system. In fact, Granlund has been called th ...
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Article written by Blake Benzel