Wilderness Walk: Draft day deux

That’s Wild

• The first round of the 2022 NHL Draft happened last night and it was a crazy series of surprise picks, wild trades, and just weird vibes. Let’s start with the most important stuff though.
• At 19th overall, with their first of the two first-rounders, the Minnesota Wild selected Swedish grinding winger Liam Ohgren. A dude that just wants to work as hard as possible in every aspect of the game and has some beef. [Hockey Wilderness]
• With their second first-round pick, they nabbed offensively-gifted Russian winger Danila Yurov; a prospect that some had going in the top-10 based on pure skill. [Hockey Wilderness]
• Beyond the actual draft stuff, Minnesota re-signed legendary netminder Marc-Andre Fleury to a two-year deal worth $3.5 million a year. Now with a tandem of Fleury and Cam Talbot, GM Bill Guerin will have to make sure that the latter is alright with a 50-50 tandem again. [Hockey Wilderness]

Off the trail...

• In other areas around the league, well, the Montreal Canadiens didn’t select the expected top prospect Shane Wright. They opted for Juraj Slafkovsky as Wright slipped all the way to fourth overall to the Seattle Kraken. [DJLR]
• Some trade news: The Toronto Maple Leafs moved down nine spots in the draft to dump two years of goaltender Petr Mrazek to the Chicago Blackhawks. [PPP]
• And in some other wild transaction news, in some weird three-way deal, the Habs acquired center Kirby Dach from Chicago, for a pick they got in return for defenseman Alexander Romanov from the New York Islanders. Huh. [EOTP]
• The Blackhawks didn’t just do that, but they also dealt their young star winger Alex DeBrincat to the Ottawa Senators for some picks. [SSS]