Story by
Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.
Myers: With Wild thinking win-now, high draft picks are investment capital
- Story byPioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.
- Myers: With Wild thinking win-now, high draft picks are investment capital
You will not find an official Minnesota Wild draft party among the myriad events happening in the Twin Cities this weekend.
Central Division rival St. Louis headed into Friday night's 2026 NHL draft in possession of four first round picks, and up-and-coming San Jose prepped to use a trio of first-rounders on the stage in Buffalo, N.Y. By contrast, barring a trade, the Wild were scheduled to wait until the draft's 89th overall pick, late in the third round, sometime Saturday.
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Their first-rounder — 24th overall — went to Vancouver in December as part of the package general manager Bill Guerin put together to get star defenseman Quinn Hughes . And at the 2026 trade deadline, Guerin sent the second round pick — 57th overall — to Nashville to get center Michael McCarron .
McCarron could have become a free agent on July 1, and would likely have fetched more than $4 million per season on the open market, after proving himself to be a unique combination of size, skill, grit and success in the faceoff circle for the Wild during their run to the second round of the playoffs. His choice to ink a six-year pact worth $3.33 million per year in Minnesota speaks to the perception of the Wild being in a win-now window, where assets that could prove valuable next spring are far more important than prospects that might pan out somewhere a few years down the road.
As opposed to former Vikings general manager Rick Spielman, who seemingly never made it out of the first round of the draft without two or three trips to the podium, Guerin has recently used his Day 1 assets as investment capital.
Last year the Wild were quiet on opening night as well, having sent their 2025 first rounder to Columbus in a trade for defensive prospect David Jiricek . That move will historically be less fondly remembered by Wild fans, as Jiricek never found his game in Minnesota and was eventually moved to Philadelphia in March to bring forward Bobby Brink back to his home state.
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Time will tell whether Brink was worth the de facto investment of a first round pick. With middle six forward Marcus Johansson heading back to Sweden to finish his career, and 23-goal scorer Vladimir Tarasenko expected to test the free agent waters next week, Brink will likely get his chance to play a larger role in the Wild offense next season.
But relatively uneventful opening draft days are nothing new to the Wild, who are among eight NHL teams that have never held the first-overall pick. In a quarter-century, they've picked in the top four just twice — drafting star Marian Gaborik third overall in 2000 and bust Benoit Pouliot fourth overall in 2005. In the past dozen years, Minnesota has picked in the top ten just once, in 2020 when they chose undersized but talented Austrian forward Marco Rossi ninth overall. Rossi now plays for the Canucks , sent there as part of the Hughes trade.
Generally the value of a draft pick drops precipitously after Round 1, but it's worth noting that former Gophers stars Brock Faber of the Wild, Matthew Knies of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Jackson LaCombe of the Anaheim Ducks were all picked in the second round, and that trio will make a combined total of more than $25 million next season. The highest-paid player in NHL history, Wild forward Kirill Kaprizov , was picked in the fifth round in 2015.
In the present, rumors continue to swirl about prized Detroit forward Dylan Larkin putting the Wild on his short list of teams where he would accept a requested trade. That means there is an above-average chance the Red Wings could be using the Wild's first-rounder in 2027, as Larkin sees this as a window of opportunity for him and his next team.
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This franchise is in win-now mode, and clearly sees their recent early-round draft picks as helping the Wild build the foundation of a team with designs on lifting the game's most coveted trophy a year from now. If that means a 2027 first-round pick that they send to Motown, or elsewhere, turns out to be 32nd overall, every fan that owns a red and green jersey would consider that trade a winner.
