[Jiri Hrdina]

Another draft is in the books. It’s always good to get summaries from teams that reviews who they picked and why.
Here is the Wild’s summary focused on the top couple of rounds

#3 – Kaapo Kakko: no need to explain this one
#4 – Bowen Byram: I figured that Pat would take one of Turcotte or Byram at #3, so I knew I would just get the other guy. I didn’t have a strong preference and made a bit of a bid to get both picks. I see Byram as the clear top dman in this draft class and his offensive ceiling makes him a good fantasy asset
#8 – Cole Caufield: When I made the deal to trade Boeser for 8 it was largely targeting Zegras or Caufield at 8. There was a small chance I’d be left with a choice between Podkolzin or Dach here. And that became a more real possibility at the #7 pick with Zegras going at 6. So I was relieved when Dallas took Bodly. I think Caufield will likely drop a little in the draft but his offensive totals are simply too impressive not to take a chance on him
#13 – Peyton Krebs. Was surprised he was here for me. His recent injury could cause a drop in the NHL draft but happy to get him
#16 – Alex Newhook. More offense. Was targeting him or Kaliyev here but Doug made that decision for me by grabbing the latter one pick before
#18/#19 – Mortiz Seider/Thomas Harley. Didn’t really want two dmen here, but it was shaping up to be York/Seider/Harley here. York goes one pick earlier. Seider I see as a riser in the draft but Harley wasn’t a guy I knew much about. Pick up purely based on the fact that based on draft rankings he was the guy here
#26 – Bobby Brink. Right where the Flames are picking and they could look to this guy. Undersized but skilled. Considered Tomasino here as well.
#35 – Pavel Dorofeyev. Had a few guys in mind here but came down to Dorofeyev or Tracey. Took a chance that Tracey would still be there later but he was grabbed just 3 picks after Dorofeyev
#50 – Ilya Nikolayev. Considered moving down but this seemed like good value.
#56 – John Farinacci. Very raw talent that I could see going anywhere from the high 2nd to 5th or later in the NHL draft.
#75 – Adam Beckman. Didn’t know much about this kid until he was mentioned on the main board recently so I researched a little and had him targeted in the 3rd.
#77 – Artemi Knyazev. Just seemed like good value here.

The rest of the rounds were hard to predict but I did grab a couple guys that I had specifically targeted for later rounds: Layton Ahac and Semyon Christyakov. The rest were largely random selections.