Ahhhh! This weekend, the NHL has been “feeling Minnesota”, but in a good way. In a nice way. “Minnesota Nice”. An oft-cliched way to explain out-of-towner’s experience with the Scandinavian transplants in the good ‘ol U.S. of A.

For the first time since 1989 (when the Wild was not even a concept and the North Stars reigned supreme), Minnesota was the site of the NHL Entry Draft.

All 30 NHL teams converged in St. Paul and Minneapolis and took their collective best shot at evaluating up and coming hockey talent.

Prior to the draft, Wild fans wondered who their team would take with the 10th overall selection, whether GM Chuck Fletcher and his front office would make a host-splash and whether Brent Burns’ job on the Wild’s blue line was safe, given his status as the only tradable asset.

Those questions were all answered on Friday night, the first night of the draft where pomp and circumstance reigned supreme during the first round selections.

With the 10th overall selection, the Minnesota Wild selected Jonas Brodin, a defenseman. The local bloggers, myself included, were perplexed at the Wild selecting a defenseman as that was a position the team and their minor league club had some depth in. The need was for skilled offensive talent. Brodin was billed as a puck moving defenseman. Needless to say, we were scratching our collective heads. However, word on the media riser via Mike Russo of the Star Tribune, beat writer for the Wild, was that Fletcher may not be done which proved to be true. Midway through the first round, those infamous words were spoken by Commissioner Bettman: “We have a trade to announce”. Minnesota, San Jose, Brent Burns and the Wild’s 2nd round pick in next year’s draft for Devin Setoguchi, prospect Charlie Coyle and San Jose’s first round pick (#28) in this year’s draft. The place went nuts. It was exactly the right move at the right time.

In years past, the Wild had lost star players (Gaborik) because of management’s failure to manage it’s assets properly. Whether it was due to ignorance or over-confidence in the past, it represented a glaring and epic failure on behalf of the prior regime’s management. A mistake that current GM Chuck Fletcher could ill-afford to make, especially given perceived mis-steps in trading Nick Leddy for Cam Barker and moving this draft’s 2nd round draft pick to Boston for Chuck Kobasew. Fletcher needed to energize his fan base and he accomplished that on Friday night.

I was fortunate enough to be joined at the draft by our very own Julie Robenhymer who is a whiz on prospects, especially those from the great state of Massachusetts and so she had the goods on Charlie Coyle. I was doubly blessed to be seated next to Shane Malloy of Hockey Prospects on satellite radio’s NHL Home Ice and author of “The Art of Scouting”. Between the two of them, I gleaned boatloads of great info.

Malloy looked at it as San Jose getting a strong, stable, young D-man and the Wild getting a one-shot goal scorer on the wing who was developed well by San Jose and had a strong puck possession game (exactly the style we heard preached by new Wild coach Mike Yeo, just a week earlier). As for Coyle, Malloy described him as a very good skater with good to excellent puck skills, shoot accuracy and good puck sense. He described Coyle as a 2nd line center in the NHL.

Julie used words like “stud” and acronyms such as “B.A.M.F” to describe Coyle. She ranted about him as a guy with a nose for the net, a player who always works hard, 6 feet-2 inches tall, 210 lbs. and still growing. She called him “a great character guy”, a “gentleman” (apparently he opened the door for her at a pizza joint in Boston) and someone who, if he stays long enough, will be the captain of Boston University’s hockey team given his “lead by example” traits. She also pointed out that he won gold at the under-18 championships as part of the National Development team. To me, what was being described was a NHL player like David Backes, but with more scoring potential. She thought he was more of a Ryan Kessler given his solid two-way in your face play. Malloy called him a hybrid of both those examples.

Later on in the evening, when Zack Phillips was selected by the Wild, Malloy described him as a clutch goal scorer who has a high percentage of game winning goals and insurance goals and plays both wing and center so he is very versatile. Malloy was wild about Phillips’ high level of hockey sense i.e. his ability to process information quickly. He also complimented his great hands, vision and passing ability. As far as weaknesses are concerned, Malloy talked about his foot speed and the fact that Phillips isn’t very fast, but he also qualified that comment by stating this was something that could be sacrificed at the NHL level if the player had a good 2 to 3 initial steps combined with agility and the ability to create time and space. Anyone thinking Andrew Brunette here? Phillips most recently played for the Memorial Cup this year.

Everyone seemed to agree that, with respect to this trade, both teams were getting what they needed for where each team was currently at. Adrian Dater exclaimed that in trades like this, usually the team getting the biggest name wins and proclaimed San Jose the winner until I reminded him about what I had just heard about Charlie Coyle and that seemed to give him cause to perhaps re-think his conclusion.

As for me. I loved this trade. During the All-Star break, I had written my confusion with Burns being named the Wild’s lone all-star as I thought he was maybe the third or fourth best player on the Wild and I surmised whether this was a propaganda push by the Wild to showcase Burns in hopes of trading him down the line. I had actually thought/heard that the Wild were interested in the Capitals’ Semin. Others who follow me and comment on my blogs openly questioned that because it didn’t seem very re-building like to just exchange players.

In the end, Fletcher described this trade as a quasi one for three as far as first round draft picks were concerned.

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On day two of the draft, I was able to interview Wild owner, Craig Leipold, Brent Burns and San Jose coach, Todd McLellan.

Craig Leipold talked about the concept that “we didn’t think we had the right team to get us to where we wanted to be” when asked if the Wild were rebuilding. He talked about the fact that “we are deeper on defense; we just don’t have a guy that shoots the puck” and that “Setoguchi fills that role; so he makes us better”. He called Burns “our best asset” and he acknowledged that while “you can’t replace Brent Burns”, “we think we’ve got a couple two or three defensemen that were on (the) Aeros last year that will be on our team this year” and “moving Burns out for Setoguchi and a couple other younger players is a good move for our future.” Regarding Charlie Coyle, Leipold acknowledged not knowing a lot about him personally “other than what they tell me” which was “you’ll love him”. He did state that “we had him in the top ten last year” when he was drafted. He said that the Wild’s scouts “think he’s had a terrific year” and that “our guys are just giddy about him” as a “power forward”. Leipold did acknowledge at the end of my interview with him that the Wild "will do whatever it takes to get better”, but that “it’s not a one year plan, it’s a three year plan.”

I was also able to catch up with Brent Burns on the concourse of the Xcel Energy Center where he was kind enough to answer a few questions. Clearly, he was feeling a lot of different emotions from being nervous about going to a new team to still being a little shocked to being excited about a great opportunity to move to a great team yet still feeling sad about leaving the Wild and the Twin Cities given the fact that he made it his year-round home for the past 8 years. He acknowledged that this was a business move and that he had to “just go with the flow”, but he reiterated his mixed emotions of excitement, shock and sadness. He spoke glowingly of his new team. “They’ve had a great team the past couple of years and I hope to add to it.” “It’s my dream to win (the Stanley Cup) and it’d be great to have the chance so it’s tough to leave her, but obviously, going to a great team makes it a little easier.” I would call it the anti-Jeff Carter response to being traded. My last question was about how he planned on moving all of his exotic animals that we’ve heard about the last 8 years. He responded, “with a big truck; I don’t know; it’s going to be interesting.”

Head coach of San Jose, Todd McLellan, said that "We obviously think he's going to be an important piece or we wouldn't have made the type of deal we made if we didn't think he could help us now and in the future. He's a very dynamic defenseman and he's still a very young defenseman. We are excited about having him and anxious to make him part of our Shark family." Regarding, what they gave up, he referred to Setoguchi as "Seto" and stated that "there are alot of similarities to Brent (Burns) where he's a young player and still has room for development. He's a quick player; tremendous shot; tremendous release; probably more of a shooter than a playmaker. (The Wild) are going to get a very motivated, young prospect that will be able to play for a number of years."

In the end, from the Wild fan perspective, you couldn’t help but feel for Burns who clearly didn’t want to leave Minnesota or the Wild. What a great character guy for showing up the second day of the draft and make himself available in a situation that was awkward to say the least. It’s funny how when guys like Burns leave on good terms, you almost become fans of where they are going to and you hope they some day catch up with their dream of winning the Stanley Cup. I say that while writing this in my San Jose Sharks jersey, # 8 (Pavelski), but in honor of Brent Burns. Good luck Brent. Thanks for helping to make the Wild better both while you were here and on your way out. Minnesota will continue to root for you, unlike Gaborik.

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The Wild threw a nice draft. It was “Minnesota Nice” to the very end. Just a few comments on some of the nice moments I experienced at the 2011 NHL Entry Draft, in no particular order:

-Vancouver getting booed mercilessly (ok, that was my favorite);

-Meeting and talking with Wes Walz at the Fan Fest (still my favorite Wild player of all time);

-Actually getting to know the guys at hockeywilderness.com, part of the SB Nation, who do a fantastic job covering the Wild (we actually talked of taking a group photo and giving it to Adrian Dater as a souvenir);

-Meeting Shane Malloy and Russ Cohen;

-Working with Julie Robenhymer;

-Being mistaken for Brian Engblom by a member of the media;

-Minnesota trading with Vancouver and selecting the first Minnesotan of the draft, Mario Lucia;

-Vancouver using one of the picks the Wild traded to them to pick another Minnesotan 101st overall in this year’s draft, Joseph Labate;

-Watching Columbus and Toronto scramble at picks #128 and #130 to select Ambroz and Cameranesi, both Minnesotans, before the Wild selected another Minnesota kid, Nick Seeler and #131;

-Getting to share this experience with two of my boys, one of whom is a sold-out Ottawa Senators fan;

-Having the Senator’s staff invite us to see them play when they are on the road and their offer to introduce my son to some of the Sens, if and when that happens;

-Seeing the Stanley Cup and getting pictures of my kids with it, individually, and getting a group photo of the three of us with it.

Let’s hope the three-year plan Leipold spoke of pans out and the Wild actually win a Stanley Cup for the State of Hockey.

My compliments to Bill Robertson and the entire PR staff for the Minnesota Wild on a Draft well done. Thank you for the experience and the opportunity.

GO WILD!!!!!!!!

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