'Irrelevant' no more: Middleton adds needed beef to Wild blueline

ST. PAUL -- When Jake Middleton was selected with the very last pick in the 2014 NHL Draft, he wasn't inside Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia to hear the Los Angeles Kings call his name.
Instead, Middleton was 500 miles north at Rogers Centre, in the stands, watching the Toronto Blue Jays host the Chicago White Sox.
"I think I threw my phone about four or five rows after about the fifth round," Middleton said.

Nearly eight years later, the NHL's version of "Mr. Irrelevant" is anything but after the Wild traded goaltender Kaapo Kahkonen and a 2023 fifth-round pick to the San Jose Sharks to acquire Middleton in an effort to beef up it's blueline ahead of what it hopes is a lengthy Stanley Cup Playoff run.
Middleton's journey from the final pick in the draft to sought after deadline add has been anything but routine.
Never an NHL regular until this season, having skated in just 14 games in the league over the past three seasons combined, Middleton has seen plenty of minutes playing with Brent Burns and Erik Karlsson on San Jose's top-4.
At his first practice with the Wild on Wednesday at TRIA Rink, Middleton was slotted on the club's top pairing next to captain Jared Spurgeon.
"It's a nice pat on the back [to be on the top pairing]," Middleton said. "But I still have a whole new staff that I have to impress. Management and scouts were probably the only ones got to see me in my time with San Jose. They don't know me yet and I still need to make a good first impression on those guys."
Middleton's stats have never jumped off the page, even going back to his days in junior hockey. His best season in the Ontario Hockey League came when he captained the Ottawa 67's in 2015-16, when he tallied seven goals and 31 points in 68 games.
He once scored six goals and 28 points in 67 American Hockey League contests with the San Jose Barracuda in 2017-18.
But so much of what Middleton does well doesn't show up in a boxscore, which is what has made him so valuable to the Sharks this season in his first extended run in the NHL.
"A physical presence ... someone that makes it difficult to get to the net," said Wild coach Dean Evason. "I'm not just talking hitting or fighting, but I'm talking about making it difficult for teams to get to the front of the net.
"All coaches talk about is, 'get in front of the goalie, screen the goalie,' and we all talk about goalies are too good [to see pucks]. It's a race for our group, and I'm sure a lot of groups, to get to the front of the net and screen and tip and create disruptions there. It's gonna be difficult with a big, strong man that's going to be physically engaged to get there.
"Hopefully it deters some people that want to get to the front of our net."
That was the scouting report on Middleton from Wild forward Ryan Hartman, who hasn't played against him a bunch, but has seen him on a couple of occasions this season.
"He's hard, he's a big body and he's not fun to stand in front of [the net] with," Hartman said. "He's going to give you shots, he's going to give you shots and he's going to make you not want to be there."
It's that willingness to make life miserable for opponents in front of the net that made him so sought after by playoff contenders around the league, and why the Wild was thrilled when it was able to corral him. At 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds, the Cal Clutterbuck doppelgänger does the dirty work, and he does it willingly.
"You'll see a lot more of that than you will scoring goals," Middleton said. "That's what I bring, a kind of physical element, blocking shots, boxing guys out. I'm a pretty simple guy, it's what got my pro career started and it's what has kept me around. So if I can do those things night in and night out, take a load off some of the other more skilled guys, that's what I hope to bring to the table."
Still, Middleton's rise from AHL regular to top pairing NHLer in a matter of one season is somewhat unheard of, especially at 26 years old.
The recipe for doing so, however, is nothing special. It's want-to, and desire.
"Passion, probably, is about the only thing. I love playing hockey and it literally is the only thing I have going on, so showing up at the rink every morning is pretty good for me," Middleton said. "If I had to attribute it to something, it'd be passion, because I enjoy working out in the offseason, I enjoy coming into the rink every morning, the comradery and all that stuff. That's what has kept me going along here these 5 1/2 years as a pro and it paid off.
"There's still a lot of work to be done though, I'm not a solidified player by any means, I hope to at one point. but there's a lot of good defensemen here and a lot of guys battling for contracts and spots."