Minnesota Wild: How the Toronto Maple Leafs’ blueprint could help

Minnesota Wild need to continue to let the Iowa Wild do its’ job

One thing that you notice, not just with the Toronto Maple Leafs, but with teams across the league is a tendency to let prospects spend more time than they might need with the feeder club.

The Toronto Maple Leafs last year saw Calder Cup success with their AHL affiliate, the Toronto Marlies and have reaped the rewards as they’ve promoted no less than four players to their NHL roster from that winning cohort.

This part of the blueprint appears to be a case of so far, so good for the Minnesota Wild. Tim Army is doing a great coaching job thus far, so much so that he’s been named one of the AHL All-Star team coaches.

Likewise, the playing squad with the Iowa Wild is playing a slightly more upbeat style of hockey to their parent club and has youth on their side, with an average age of under 25.

If the Minnesota Wild are willing to let their prospects spend a prolonged period with the Iowa Wild in the hopes of a big play-off run in the AHL; they will surely reap the benefits once those prospects graduate to the main roster.

Of course, there is also something to be said for promoting some of these guys to the main roster after hopefully ditching some of the current Minnesota Wild group at the trade deadline.

Basically, they need to look at the way William Nylander was moved into the Toronto Maple Leafs line-up once they’d shipped out a bunch of players, giving him about twenty games to find his feet at the NHL level before giving a full-blown promotion the next year.

Likewise, Kasperi Kapanen and Travis Dermott are examples of players that were given a short glimpse of action in the big time before returning to the Marlies in the AHL. That little taste of action should be enough to whet the appetites of any future Minnesota Wild player even when they return to riding the buses with the Iowa Wild.

Looking across the Iowa Wild roster; there’s at least three or four players that could be given a shot with the Minnesota Wild this season. That cast is led by Luke Kunin, who appears to have done enough to now be a fixture on the big club.

I’m happy to preach that Kaapo Kahkonen should get a shot, but only when the games are a bit less meaningful; you don’t want to damage his confidence. Louie Belpedio has to be highly ranked in terms of defensive prospects knocking on the door, same with Carson Soucy.

The door might’ve shut for Justin Kloos, Sam Anas and Kyle Rau, but that just opens it for guys like Mason Shaw and Dmitri Sokolov. Both, by season’s end, might well be ready for the briefest glimpse of the big time.

Finally, the team need a little bit of drafting luck; some smart trades could really be beneficial too.