Jon Merrill might receive attention for the mullet that he sports — a look that he says goes well beyond just a simple coiffe. But the Minnesota Wild defenseman’s game and way he conducts himself doesn’t go unnoticed either.
“A pro,” Wild coach Dean Evason said to describe the 29-year-old during a media availability session on Saturday. “Whenever the coach says, or anyone says, ‘That guy is just a pro.’ I think that’s one of the biggest compliments you can have in our game. He just conducts himself like a pro.”
Merrill signed a one-year deal with the Wild at the end of July after he played 49 games between the Montreal Canadiens and Detroit Red Wings last year. He was paired with fellow veteran Dmitry Kulikov in Wednesday’s preseason game at Colorado, and are among the Wild’s Top Six defensemen in the latest depth chart.
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Merrill has shown little reason for his position to change through the opening week-and-a-half of the Wild’s training camp.
“He just skates well,” Evason said. “Big, strong and he’s intense. He had a couple risky passes in his first shift the other night and we were like, ‘Oh, boy.’ But then he just settled right in and made simple, sound plays.”
Evason said earlier this summer that both Merrill and Kulikov — who also was signed in the summer —bring experience to the Wild defense as well as physical and gritty style. They were part of an active offseason for Minnesota and also a draft that focused on defensemen.
Merrill had 11 hits and 23 blocked shots in 13 Stanley Cup Playoff games with the Canadiens last year and has 66 points and 211 penalty minutes and 364 hits during an eight-year NHL career. He also has 507 block shots in 405 games with the Red Wings, Canadiens, Vegas Golden Knights and New Jersey Devils. .
“Yeah, (Merrill and Kulikov) are gritty guys and play hard,” Evason said during a media availability session on play hard. the game has changed,” Evason said. “The game’s changed. It’s not the days of having kind of one skilled guy and one real gritty, tough guy, in a (defensive) pair. That’s gone.
“I think everybody that plays (in the NHL) now has bite to them, plays hard, and has different skill sets.,” Evason said. “The people that we’ve signed for our back end, we think they have bite and have grit. We ask everybody to play that style of game and we feel that’ll give us a chance to have success.”