4. Minnesota Wild – Score: 86.3

Top 15 Prospects

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Individual Breakdown

As you can see, we have a three-way tie for first on the Wild that shows three different views for prospect values. Faber established himself in (full) year one and shot up all prospect and keeper ownership, and produced well showing long flashes of his potential. Rossi did not produce that well in year one but was able to play a full season. He still screams potential and keeper owners know that. Wallstedt looked great in the AHL, had a couple NHL starts, but is still likely a ways away but his potential is still sky high.

The next tier is four players all with top six potential in Yurov, Heidt, Ohgren and Khusnutdinov. Yurov has another year in the KHL and Heidt is still a few years away from NHL action. Ohgren and Khusnutdinov are here now, and should be fixtures in the NHL line up with production that ramps up over the years. Firstov finally came back from the KHL and hopefully he sticks around long enough to likely become a middle-six winger.

With how great the forward prospects are it leaves the defense in the dust. Lambos has seemingly been forgotten and likely ranked a bit lower than he should be. Chisholm came over on waivvers from the Jets and was finally given a chance. The Wild have something with Chisholm and he can run one of the two powerplays (like he did in the last half of the season). Faber is great, but outside of him, Lambos and Chisholm there is not anyone that stands out on the back end.

It is clear Charlie Stramel has dropped off the map of many, but (for me anyway) any time a team invests a first round selection in a player they will do all they can to make it work. Also, the legendary Judd Bracket selected Stramel, so there must be something there. Big potential for a buy low and stash option there.

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Team Breakdown

The Minnesota Wild have routinely been at the top of the organizational rankings due to the teams’ incredible scouting pedigree. The Wild also need all the young cheap talent they can get with the looming cap hits from the Suter and Parise buyouts that will finally drop from $14.7M to $1.6M in 2025-26. The team will finally be able to add some worthy free agent talent to a team loaded with top flight prospects in hopes to convince top player Kaprizov to stay on board as he is scheduled to become a UFA in the 2026 off-season.

Players on the Wild roster will be a fixture in keeper league ownership, but the biggest issue with a team that stacked with forward prospects and that is playing time. Specifically, who gets time with Kaprizov, who gets 1PP time, and who gets the left over 2PP time? Any players outside of that surely will not be the best to hold on to for scoring prowess.