2023 NHL Draft Preview

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The video screen inside the hotel conference room not far from Bridgestone Arena flickers to life and a list of 32 names appears.

This is the Minnesota Wild's first-round draft list.

In this moment on Tuesday morning some 33 hours before the start of the 2023 NHL draft, this list is just that, a collection of names on a screen. Static. One-dimensional.

But as the Minnesota Wild's Director of Amateur Scouting, Judd Brackett, and his staff go through the now-familiar list, the names become something more, something animate, something tangible.

By the time the draft begins Wednesday evening, that list, those names, will represent no less than the future for the Minnesota Wild.

And let's be clear, the Wild's list is almost certainly going to be different than all of the 31 other teams.

That's because this list reflects the very specific types of traits that GM Bill Guerin and his staff require of all of their players regardless of what level they're playing at, from major junior, to college, to European leagues, to the American Hockey League and, of course, the NHL.

That's why you won't find a number of highly skilled players on the Wild's list that are invariably on many other teams' lists. That's because those players don't fit what the team is looking for. It's that simple.

"Our job as a scout is to do what our boss tells us to do," Brackett said. "If grit and determination is valued over speed that is reflected in our draft."

"We, as an organization, have an identity and our job is to support that," Brackett added.

The Wild staff are divided on this Tuesday morning before the draft with the pro scouts on one side of a divided conference room, the amateur scouts and development staff on the larger side.

But, first, Guerin addresses the group as a whole.

He thanks them for the hard work that has been put in over the previous year leading up to the draft, longer when you consider some of these players have been on the Wild's radar for two or three years.

"Let's go get it done this week," Guerin said.

It's understated but it underscores the seriousness of the task at hand. Get it right over the course of two days in Nashville and maybe the work done here will lead to the ultimate, a Stanley Cup parade in the State of Hockey. Get it wrong? Well, best not to consider that.

The Wild enters the draft with the 21st overall pick, two second-round picks, 53rd and 64th overall, and one each in the fifth, sixth and seventh rounds, picks 149th, 181st and 213th respectively.

While it will be Guerin who makes the calls to his counterparts with other teams if the Wild is engaged in trying to move up or down in the draft, make no mistake this is Brackett's show.

The immediate focus is the first round and so Tuesday morning's session is devoted to detailed discussion of which players from higher in their list might fall to them at 21st or which players would be worth trying jump up in the draft to try to secure.

The higher up a team hopes to jump the higher the cost and that cost is also part of the discussion.

The group examines which teams are short of draft picks and might be interested in one or both of the Wild's second-round picks and what a package might look like that allowed it to move into a second first-round pick.

There is also discussion about which other teams they believe might share an interest in a player and where those teams sit in the draft order relative to the Wild.

That is the fluid nature of the draft, each possible scenario impacted by many other decisions made outside the Wild's control. Fans may assume that if teams are being aggressive it means moving higher in the draft but that's not necessarily true.

"Aggressive isn't always moving up," Brackett said. "It could be moving back. It's being prepared and having done the work and discussed options."

At this stage the teenage players being considered are all talented but the Wild staff are now taking a deeper dive into their attributes whether it's size, speed, skill or maybe it's character and how they balance against each other when the team may need to make a final decision on selecting a player.

The nature of defining and/or measuring character may seem nebulous but there are ways to refine the process and to that end the Wild has hired Aaron Bogosian who provides his assessment on a number of players during the Tuesday meeting.

Bogosian also leads the questioning of a handful of prospects that weren't at the Draft Combine in Buffalo who met with Wild staff on Tuesday. The questions Bogosian poses to these players are meant to force the players to be introspective and do some soul-searching as it relates to how they perceive themselves and how others perceive them and how they have faced challenges in their respective lives.

"We do put an emphasis on character. We think it's a good barometer for future development and success," Brackett said.
Guerin didn't know Brackett when he hired him although the two did share some common geography coming from Massachusetts. Brackett's family still runs a successful restaurant on Cape Cod.

"Judd is awesome, he's a stud," Guerin said.

Although Guerin learned the scouting business while part of the hockey operations staff in Pittsburgh where he won one Cup as a player and two as an executive, he is not, a scout by trade. He knows that. That's why hiring Brackett was one of Guerin's first and most important hires when he took the Wild job in August, 2019.

"I have complete faith in him and his staff and how he runs (the draft)," Guerin said.

"He's a very good person. He's honest, hard-working. But he's really smart. He's organized," Guerin added. "He just really know what he's doing. He empowers guys to do their job. He's put together a really good staff."

Brackett still recalls his first draft as a scout for Vancouver at the end of the 2008-09 season vividly.

Walking into the Bell Centre in Montreal, Brackett took in the tables scattered around the draft floor, the media risers, the stands where the picks and their family and friends and agents would be gathered hoping to hear their names called.

"The first time, it's a bit of an 'aha!' moment," Brackett said. "You feel like it's game day again. Everyone is there, the GMs, the players, it's the future of the league in some respects."

"Even now, getting on the bus and going to the arena, most of us played at some level, it still gives you the game day vibe, walking out on the floor and you see all the tables and all the people that make it work, the league people, it's special," Brackett added.

It will be no different Wednesday in Nashville where Brackett will preside over his fourth draft since taking over as director of amateur scouting for the Wild.

In the almost decade and a half since Brackett first walked into an NHL draft the importance of the work done by the now 32 NHL scouting staffs continues to grow in importance. This is especially so given the flattening of the salary cap as a result of the pandemic.

"Everyone is uber-focused on the draft right now because it's your lifeblood," he explained.

Teams that can't draft and develop young NHL players are forced into bolstering their lineups through trades and free agency which is never a way to build a consistent winner.

The Wild situation is different than many teams given the organizational decision two years ago to buy out veterans Zach Parise and Ryan Suter. The cap penalties are severe and this coming season the team will operate with north of $14.7 million in dead cap money. It will be the same scenario next summer as well.

Some teams might alter their draft strategy based on those restrictions. For instance, Guerin could direct Brackett and his staff to focus on players that could assume NHL roles more quickly.

But that's not happening. In fact, the question comes up Tuesday morning about how many of the players on the first-round list could realistically play in the NHL next season. The short answer is only a handful.

So, Guerin wants Brackett and his staff to do what they've been doing. Trusting their own process and taking the best player available to them at the time.

"If we need immediate help we can get that through free agency or depth guys or whatever it is," Guerin said. "The draft is too important to put a rush on things."

The morning meeting comes to an end with short video presentations of a number of players the staff are keen on. Credentials are handed out. Plans are finalized for a team dinner and one more player interview on Wednesday morning.

Still, Brackett, Bogosian, Vice President of Hockey Strategy Mat Sells and veteran Amateur Scout Dan Palango hover around Brackett's computer screen going over various scenarios.

It's a reminder that the work really never ends until the moment the name of the Wild's first pick is spoken aloud from the podium on the Nashville draft floor.

"This is exciting but it's also you have to go through the scenarios because then you have to be able to live with it, too, right?" Brackett said.

"If this is our guy what does it feel like tomorrow? When we're back here in the room and that person is now a part of the Wild, are we still as happy with that?"

"It's easy to do it sort of in the ether, but we've got to follow through with it and execute tomorrow," he added. "This is where it takes the whole group, it takes conversations with Billy, it takes conversations with Mat, with the regional scout that may have seen him the most. This is where the whole collection and the collaborative effort really happens."