Minnesota Wild: What’s become of the traded draft picks?
By Luke Ryan
The 2011 NHL Entry Draft was the first to be held in St. Paul, Minnesota since the days of the Minnesota North Stars. The Minnesota Wild held onto their first round pick, taking Jonas Brodin 10th overall.
They also picked up Zack Phillips late in the first round (28th overall) having obtained the San Jose Sharks’ draft pick in the move that saw Brent Burns and Charlie Coyle swap teams. That move is one I think Coyle still has to wear today, given the player that Burns has become since joining the Sharks.
So far, so good for the Minnesota Wild. Jonas Brodin is still playing well for the team. Zack Phillips, not so much; he most recently was plying his trade in Hungary for a team that competes in the Erste Bank Eishockey Liga after playing a journeyman role in the United States for a short time.
The Boston Bruins were the beneficiary of the Minnesota Wild’s second round pick on day two; the result of the Chuck Kobasew trade made back in 2009. With that pick, Boston grabbed Russian forward, Alexander Khokhlachev.
He suited up in a grand total of nine NHL games for the Boston Bruins and now is happily playing back in Russia in the KHL. Nine games, no goals – not a bad loss for the Minnesota Wild.
Hindsight being twenty-twenty, you look at some of the names that Boston skipped on and are somewhat glad that they didn’t use that pick on Brandon Saad or Nikita Kucherov. The fact they got zero production and less than ten games from the Minnesota Wild pick makes it feel a little better.
David Honzik and Jospeh LaBate were selected in the third and fourth rounds respectively by the Vancouver Canucks, both times having acquired the Minnesota Wild’s draft picks.
Joseph LaBate has become the epitomy of a consistent AHL performer; nothing more, nothing less and these days plays for the Belleville Senators. David Honzik never made it to the NHL and finds himself playing in his native Czech Republic these days.
2011 isn’t a year that bit the Minnesota Wild in terms of the picks they didn’t make. Unless of course, you play devil’s advocate and say they would’ve picked up Saad or Kucherov.
And so we move on to the next draft years that were missing picks for the Minnesota Wild; 2013 and 2014.