Owner Craig Leipold announced Monday that Chuck Fletcher, the team’s general manager for nine seasons, will not be returning.

The Wild fell in the first round of the playoffs for the third year in a row and lost the best-of-7 series in five games for the second consecutive season earlier this month, getting shut out in their final two games against the Winnipeg Jets.

In a statement, Leipold thanked Fletcher, whose teams reached 100 points in three of the past four seasons, for making “substantial contributions to our franchise over the past nine years,” but added, “I feel it is time for a new approach aimed at delivering the Stanley Cup to the deserving fans of the State of Hockey.”

Leipold said assistant GM Brent Flahr will serve as acting general manager while the team looks for a replacement. Flahr is considered one of many candidates to take over for Fletcher.

Minnesota finished third in the Central Division this season and second in 2016-17, but has lost 16 of its most recent 20 playoff games. It had made the playoffs for six seasons in a row.

Injuries to Ryan Suter, Zach Parise, Nino Nieterreiter, Charlie Coyle, Jared Spurgeon and others added to the team’s degree of difficulty this season, and Suter and Parise were both sidelined at the finish.

Because of the likely retirement of 41-year-old winger Matt Cullen and the team’s close proximity to the NHL’s salary cap, more changes are likely for the Wild via trades and free agency during the summer.

Expect Leipold to move quickly to name a new GM and begin the process of restructuring the Wild lineup.

The post Fletcher out as Wild GM appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

When the Minnesota Wild selected the 19-year-old Nick Swaney in the seventh round of the 2017 NHL Draft with the 209th overall pick last June, the former Lakeville South forward became the first player in school history to be drafted by an NHL team.

The long wait did not faze Swaney, who had been there before.

“It was my third year (of eligibility) so I was going in kind of just whatever happens, happens. If it wasn’t going to happen it wasn’t the end of the world and if it was it was pretty awesome. Obviously getting drafted by your hometown team is a pretty surreal moment for me and my family.”

Nick Swaney (MHM Photo / Jeff Wegge)

Although Swaney’s reign as the lone Cougar draft pick lasted just six picks, when fellow Lakeville South alum Joshua Ess was snatched up by the Chicago Blackhawks, no one can take No. 1 from him.

The humble Swaney, however, does not concern himself with those things. Instead, the now 20-year-old University of Minnesota Duluth freshman prefers to pay homage to those who came before him.

“I know I’m the first drafted but I think of guys that I looked up to like Justin Kloos, for instance, who didn’t get drafted but got a game with the Wild this year and is playing with the Iowa Wild,” Swaney said. “Growing up watching Justin and (former Bulldog) Kyle Osterberg play high school hockey really pushed me to where I am and hopefully I can do that for kids coming up right now too.”

This week, Swaney is once again following his fellow former Cougars once, this time to the Frozen Four, an event both Kloos (2014 with Minnesota) and Osterberg (2017) helped their teams reach.

“As a kid you dream of getting to the Frozen Four and, making it even better, playing at the ‘X’ in front of a big crowd is going to be something special,” Swaney said of playing for a national championship in the arena he one day hopes to call home.

Swaney grew up playing youth hockey in Lakeville and by the time he reached high school he was a player in high demand, especially after a strong showing in the Upper Midwest High School Elite League.

That’s where UMD coach Scott Sandelin took notice.

“I saw a kid that, obviously, could skate, he’s got good speed, but he could score,” Sandelin said. “Everybody’s looking for guys that can score.”

Shortly after the UMHSEL season concluded, Swaney announced his commitment to Sandelin and the Bulldogs.

I’m proud and excited to announce I’ve committed to play college hockey at the University of Minnesota Duluth! #Bulldogs

— Nick Swaney (@swaneshow) October 28, 2013

After finishing his sophomore season at Lakeville South, Swaney joined the United States Hockey League’s Waterloo Black Hawks and, in his junior hockey debut on March 15, 2014, scored his first USHL goal with 40 seconds left in a 7-3 win over the Dubuque Fighting Saints.

Swaney returned to the Cougars as a junior, scoring 25 goals and 57 points in just 25 games before rejoining the Black Hawks and contributing nine goals and 13 points their final 15 games.

Sandelin said the original plan when Swaney was recruited was for him to play two years of junior with the possibility of joining the Bulldogs sooner.

Swaney decided to forgo his senior season at Lakeville South and hone his game in Waterloo the next two seasons, scoring 115 points on 66 goals and 49 assists in 120 games, including 30 goals in his first full season.

“He had a really good first year in junior hockey but we felt he was a top-six forward for us,” Sandelin said. “I didn’t really want him playing maybe a third or fourth line role.

“There was some consideration of bringing him in after his first year of junior but we didn’t lose anybody that year and we were pretty much set.”

On one hand, that cost Swaney a chance to play in the Frozen Four with the Bulldogs a year earlier but, on the other, it gave NHL representatives more opportunity to watch him play consistently in a top-six role.

“For us, he’s your typical late bloomer,” Wild Assistant GM Brent Flahr said. “Last year,we spent a lot of time watching Waterloo and he’s guy that kind of caught everybody’s eye. At the same time, he’s not the biggest body so he needs to get stronger and gain a step and get quicker.”

Flahr added Swaney is a smart offensive player who can make plays and play in most situations. “Sandy does a great job with those kids up there, him and his staff,” Flahr said. “So we’re hopeful he continues to get better and so far, so good.”

Swaney wouldn’t disagree with that assessment, saying college hockey has been exactly as he expected and, overall, his rookie season has been a good one.

“I’ve had a couple injuries this year which kind of set me back a little bit and put some hiccups in the road,” Swaney said. “Just getting back that confidence here at the end of the season and knowing my linemates are going to be picking me up no matter what happens.”

Swaney comes to St. Paul playing on a line with seniors Jared Thomas and Karson Kuhlman, the team’s captain. The pair are the first players in school history to make four consecutive NCAA tournament appearances.

“Playing with them you get their best every single night and you feed off of it and makes you want to play up to their level,” Swaney said.

Swaney and Nick Deery celebrate a UMD goal. (MHM Photo / Jonny Watkins)

With its roster pillaged by graduation and the NHL,  2017 NCAA runner-up Minnesota Duluth was not expected to make another Frozen Four run this season. Yet the Bulldogs find themselves in St. Paul, site of the school’s first and only national championship and two wins away from another.

Swaney said resiliency has been key to the Bulldogs’ season, pointing to UMD’s poor showing in the NCHC Frozen Faceoff putting its NCAA tournament hopes in peril.

“We lost both of those games and kind of barely snuck into the NCAA tournament,” Swaney said. “We knew that’s all we needed; once we got in anything could happen.”

The Bulldogs bounced back in the West Regional in Sioux Falls, S.D., storming back from a two-goal deficit to eliminate Minnesota State in overtime and defeating Air Force 4-1 in the region final.

Swaney scored the tying goal against the Mavericks with 4:08 left in regulation and scored again 55 seconds into overtime but the goal was reversed when the officials ruled teammate Dylan Samberg had interfered with the MSU goaltender. Parker Mackay’s goal 1:33 later, however, officially sent UMD back to St. Paul.

While the Bulldogs are the underdogs among Notre Dame, Ohio State and Michigan, Swaney says UMD cannot be counted out this weekend.

“Obviously, it’s going to be kind of a different stage — more emotion and everything — but if we can just stick to what we know and just live in the moment and play period-by-period, things are going to go in our favor.”

The post Late Bloomer appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Prior draft experience inspires Jack Sadek to happy return

When 15-year-old Jack Sadek attended the 2012 NHL Draft with his cousin, top prospect Brady Skjei, he experienced the life of an NHL draftee.

From sitting with Skjei in Pittsburgh’s Consol Energy Center waiting to hear Skjej’s name called to watching him don the New York Rangers sweater and meet the team’s executives, the Lakeville, Minn. native  experienced much of what Skjei did that night.

While Sadek returned to Minnesota with a Rangers hat as a souvenir, the former Lakeville North defenseman also brought back something else: a dream.

“He was taken away by the draft,” Skjei said. “He really enjoyed (the draft) process and it was his goal to one day get there.”

Following a high school career that included both a state championship and a University of Minnesota commitment, Sadek did indeed return to the NHL Draft last month at BB&T Center in Sunrise, Fla. This time, however, Sadek brought home the sweater and hat of the Minnesota Wild—the team which drafted him in the seventh round (No. 204 overall).

“It meant a lot,” Sadek said of getting drafted by the Wild. “It’s fun how I played Minnesota high school (hockey) then will play for the University of Minnesota, then hopefully onto the Wild.

“I’m living the Minnesota dream.”

Another Sadek Division I defenseman, Jack’s sister Dani, couldn’t help but notice how elated her brother was when he realized his hockey career would continue in his home state for the foreseeable future.

“I haven’t seen him that happy in a long time,” said Dani, who will begin her sophomore season on the Ohio State University blue line in September.

Dani is just one member of Sadek’s intermediate and extended families which epitomize the word ‘athletic.’ Dani and Jack’s father, Brett Sadek, played football for the University of Minnesota after his father, Bob Sadek, played quarterback for the Golden Gophers in the early 1960’s.

The Sadek family also made an appearance in professional baseball from 1973-1981 when Mike Sadek, Jack and Dani’s great uncle, played catcher for the San Francisco Giants.

Heading into the draft process, the Wild were well aware of Jack Sadek’s lineage.

“That obviously helps when you know how athletic the family is,” Wild assistant General Manager Brent Flahr said. “We don’t obviously totally rely on genetics in our business, but it is certainly something that makes sense and is certainly not a strike against him.”

From Sadek’s athletic roots to his strong defensive play that made him a Mr. Hockey finalist in 2015, Flahr and the Wild saw it as a “no-brainer” taking Sadek in South Florida.

The 6 foot 3, 185-pound defenseman’s career is headed in the right direction, but he still has a ways to go before fans might see him play at the Xcel Energy Center in a green sweater.

“He’s a good size kid already, but he clearly needs to get stronger and put on weight, which most young kids do,” Flahr said.

Sadek will likely grow in strength and size at the University of Minnesota. But his mastery of the defenseman position will also need to continue to improve since he hasn’t played the position for that long.

“When I got my hands on him, he had just kind of made the decision to move from forward to defense, so he was really an infant in the position of defense,” Lakeville North coach Trent Eigner said. “That’s why there is a ton of potential with him because he’s not a kid who played the position for seven to eight years.”

Luckily for Sadek, he has two very knowledgable and talented relatives who know the position well: his cousin and sister.

Living just two minutes away from Sadek, Skjei played a mentor-type role to his younger cousin throughout their time growing up together.

“He always gives me tips on what I need to improve on,” Sadek said. “Brady has always been a role model of mine.”

And the future Gopher defenseman will need these tips from his cousin with what is to come.

“It’s a big adjustment for a number of these guys and it takes time and repetition, learning the game,” Flahr said. “There will be certain nights that it is going to be a big challenge for him, but at the same time, it’s a healthy learning curve.”

Even with the growing pains that will ensue, Sadek can’t help but smile knowing that he continues to live his dream, a dream that gained momentum the night he watched his cousin get drafted in Pittsburgh three years ago.

“I thought it was the coolest thing ever,” Sadek said of the 2012 draft. “I did not picture myself being drafted [back then] but I’m glad it happened.”

The post A Minnesota dream come true appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Minnesota stands firm at No. 18, picks up power forward prospect.

As the Minnesota Wild’s turn at the NHL Draft podium drew near on Friday night in Philadelphia, reports were rampant that GM Chuck Fletcher’s phone was ringing off the hook, so to speak. But any offers Fletcher may have received were not enough to dissuade him from taking the stage; at least not with the United States National Team Development Program’s Alex Tuch still on the board.

Minnesota selected the 6’3″, 218 pound C/RW with its first-round pick (No. 18 overall) in the 2014 NHL Entry Draft. The Boston College commit entered the draft as the top-rated American, and No. 12 overall, among North American skaters in NHL Central Scouting’s final rankings.

“We are very happy to add Alex to the Minnesota Wild organization,” Assistant General Manager Brent Flahr said in a statement released by the team. “He’s a big strong winger with quality hands and an NHL shot. We feel that he has tremendous upside and we are very excited to add a potential power forward to our group of prospects.”

Tuch registered 64 points (29-35–64) to go along with 70 penalty minutes in 61 games for the USNDTP under-18 team last season. The Baldwinsville, NY native’s seven game-winning goals and plus-35 rating tied for the team lead in both categories.

“Alex is a big body and that’s something you can’t teach,” Central Scouting’s Greg Rajanen told NHL.com’s Mike Morreale prior to the draft. “He’s got some grit to his game and is good around the net, is physical … if you’re looking for a power forward it’s Tuch, so it’s a matter of team needs at that slot.”

Many labels have been applied to the Wild over the years, but gritty and physical are among the rarest. If Tuch develops as Fletcher and Flahr hope, the Wild will have addressed those needs while adding a skilled and sizeable young forward to an increasingly deep system.

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