The Minnesota Wild are in the final year of major cap purgatory due to the Zach Parise and Ryan Suter buyouts. A nearly $15MM cap penalty comes off the books next year. In my last look at the Wild back in May, we looked at the cohorts the Wild have to build around and suggested that building around a Matt Boldy/Brock Faber cohort looked like the optimal place to focus.
The Wild are off to a scorching hot start to the season, now in a pitched battle for league supremacy as the 30 game mark approaches. It appears they haven’t let that sway their decision making though, as they acquired David Jiricek from the Columbus Blue Jackets last week.
Jiricek to the Wild
Jiricek was the 6th overall pick in 2022. Selected by the Blue Jackets, it seems that Columbus had given up on him despite the fact that Jiricek is still only 21. He hadn’t been able to hold down a permanent spot in the Blue Jackets’ NHL lineup, however he still has time to develop. Let’s take a look at the Wild’s acquisition through the lens of the 10 Teambuilding Tenets.
Tenet #1 – Elite Teams Are Driven By Elite Players
Hockey Prospecting has Jiricek at a 71% likelihood of becoming an NHLer and a 52% likelihood of becoming a star in the most recent update. That’s not a sure thing, but it’s a pretty solid gamble to take . Particularly when one of his closest comparables is Adam Fox. If the Wild end up with a Fox level player, that’s a piece that can help drive a team. If that piece is currently only 21, it can also be for a long time.
Tenet #5 – Swing Big For Stars
Elite teams are driven by elite players but they are not easy to acquire. The Wild sensed an opportunity with Jiricek and took a big swing. If Jiricek does pan out as a star, the price won’t seem so steep. They gave up a pick in each of the first four rounds, spread over the next three drafts along with Daemon Hunt and received a 5th round pick with Jiricek.
The first round pick included in the deal was Minnesota’s 2025 pick which is likely to be well into the 20s this year based on their current point pace. That pick would come with Star/NHLer likelihood much lower than Jiricek’s probabilities currently lie. If the Wild deploy their $15MM in new found cap space wisely next season, they shouldn’t be picking anywhere near the top of the draft for a while. That means finding elite players somewhere other than the top of the draft, and the Wild’s swing here fits the bill.
Tenet #8 – Regenerate the Roster
When we think of regenerating the roster, it usually means an older player removed from the roster in favor of younger players, prospects or picks. This was an entire deal built around prospects and picks, so how does it fit with Tenet #8?
We need to get out the wide angle lens. The Wild already have a young cohort incoming that should be the focal point of the roster for the next half decade or more. Matt Boldy (23), Marco Rossi (23), and Brock Faber (22) are the starting point but it needs to be filled out more completely to adequately fill out the Wild’s roster when the group is in their prime. Adding a 21 year old Jiricek adds another potential piece to that group that can be a useful piece even if he only hits as an NHLer (but not a star). Expanding this cohort gives the Wild the best chance to bring a strong regenerative cohort through their system. They’re also using future assets from a group just behind this cohort to add to it, which fits nicely with regenerative roster building theory by consolidating assets into alternating cohort age groups.
Spending a number of future assets on a young player for their incoming cohort also prevents them from using those futures to acquire an older rental or veteran with a significant cap hit. That also helps the regenerative nature of the roster by avoiding filling the NHL roster with too many veterans that block younger players from gaining a foothold in the NHL. That leads us to one more tenet of team building.
Tenet #7 – Flexibility is Important
As noted off the top, the Wild have $15MM of cap space next year that they’ve had committed to buyout penalties in recent seasons. They could have chased an established star with the assets they gave up for Jiricek. That could have made a noticeable impact on their cap sheet right now and would have required removing something from the current NHL squad. The Jiricek addition does not since he’s still on his ELC. That leaves the Wild with more long term flexibility and opportunity to look at additional acquisitions either through trade or free agency next summer, or simply use the extra cap space to pay their own prospects that hit at the NHL level.
The Wild took a big swing acquiring David Jiricek. It may or may not work out, but there are plenty of reasons to like where they’re headed.
