College hockey and the Minnesota Wild, a healthy marriage (for now)

“Me and you, and you and me, no matter how they toss the dice it has to be, the only one for me is you and you for me, so happy together” are the lyrics to the classic Turtles song, So Happy Together.  This is my parents’ favorite song, a song they grew up with and through osmosis I grew up with it as well.  I also grew up watching college hockey a lot more than the NHL, due in part to the relative success of the Minnesota Golden Gophers and the futility of the Minnesota North Stars.

The North Stars, especially when it was under General Manager Lou Nanne, the relationship between the NHL and the state’s NCAA club was at least cordial.  Nanne often enjoyed picking up former college players to fill out the North Stars’ roster with mixed success but it certainly should’ve been considered a pipeline of talent.  Whether it was Mike Eaves, Scott Bjugstad, Craig Ludwig and many others Nanne brought to the club having played college hockey first often brought maturity and an-NHL ready mindset.

College hockey and Minnesota Wild have been more of a work in progress.  While the team did sign some former college players to provide veteran leadership in its early years like Brad Bombardir, Darby Hendrickson, Antti Laaksonen,  Jim Dowd and Andy Sutton but it seemed to avoid selecting college-bound players in the draft.  Then Wild GM Doug Risebrough was dismissive of adding talent via free agency for undrafted college players.  The reasons for such an attitude vary from the belief of the greater number of games played in a major junior season versus the NCAA or the belief that kids who experience the grind of long bus rides are somehow more mentally tough than college kids.

Would Risebrough’s Wild even considered signing Nate Prosser as an undrafted college free agent? Mar 27, 2014; St. Louis, MO, USA; Minnesota Wild defenseman Nate Prosser (39) skates with the puck against the St. Louis Blues during the second period at Scottrade Center. Mandatory Credit: Scott Rovak-USA TODAY Sports

I sometimes wonder if Risebrough ever would have considered signing an undrafted college free agent like Nate Prosser or Christian Folin?   I am not going to claim that Prosser was a huge signing but the Colorado College product provided valuable depth to an organization that needed it.  College free agents don’t always work out as was the case of Casey Wellman, but after a series of lousy drafts by the Risebrough / Tommy Thompson brain trust signing free agents was a way to help restore a very thin prospect pool.  Current Wild GM Chuck Fletcher deserves a lot of credit for that shift in philosophy.

Now that Minnesota has done a better job at the draft, the team has also embraced the slow and steady development path of college players in its selections.  From 2014 1st rounder Alex Tuch, to other draftees like Adam Gilmour, John Draeger, Stephen Michalek, Louie Belpedio, Mario Lucia, Avery Peterson, and Nick Seeler are all honing their game in the college ranks and that seems to suit the Wild just fine.  A recent Minneapolis Star Tribune article by Michael Russo pointed out players with college connections now are all over the Wild roster.  The Wild’s coaching staff met with Gopher’s hockey head coaches Don Lucia and Brad Frost, Bob Motzko at St. Cloud State and Scott Sandelin at UMD as a way to create sort of a hockey community and bounce ideas off of one another.  As a high school teacher and coach, that kind of collaboration can be powerful for all parties involved.  Even small things that are learned can have a powerful impact.

"“I don’t think we’d be at this point if he was being coached properly,” Islanders’ GM Garth Snow on Don Lucia in 2007"

I would never call the Wild’s relationship with the NCAA icy, but some NHL teams have clashed at times with NCAA programs over development and what they felt was best for their players.  All one has to remember is the comments made in 2007 by New York Islanders’ GM Garth Snow towards Don Lucia where he accused the Gophers’ all time in coaching victories of not developing players properly.  While NHL teams must do what they can protect their assets, the Wild, to their credit have avoided calling out coaches and teams about player development.  At the very least, if they had misgivings they’ve kept it out of the public eye.

When I got married, one piece of advice that was shared with me was to never go to bed angry.  So far the Wild have not only avoided going to bed angry with their significant college others, but maybe took their partner out for a dinner and a movie.  Hopefully they can remain a happy couple.