The third pair defense roster spots are up for grabs and the competition is heating up.
Mike Reilly, Gustav Olafsson, Kyle Quincey, Ryan Murphy, and Carson Soucy are the names we all expected before camp began. But Nick Seeler has looked solid and yesterday we saw camp invitee Brennan Menell make his Wild debut and deliver a power play assist on Mikael Granlund's goal.
Menell is a great story, being a Woodbury, MN native, he was cut from the varsity team as a sophomore at St. Thomas Academy but took that as a message he needed to work harder. He did just that taking his game to the (NAPHL) North American Prospects Hockey League and then on to the WHL where he played two years for the Vancouver Giants and last year with the Lethbridge Hurricanes, where he scored 12 goals and 71 points in 70 games, and added 5 goals and 12 assists in 20 playoff contests.
Menell is the kind of player the Wild need to find as they have traded so many of their recent high draft choices. As assistant coach John Anderson said yesterday, it is a real credit to the Wild scouting staff, but now the downside is everyone else knows about him now.
The backup goalie battle will be front and center over the next week as well, as both Niklas Svedberg and Alex Stalock have played well in their only appearances to date.
Joel Eriksson Ek will make his preseason debut tonight.
Wild lineup:
Forwards
Coyle
Stewart
Eriksson Ek
Foligno
O'Reilly
Kunin
Malone
Winnik
Gabriel
Ferraro
Cannone
Bertschy
Mitchell
Defense
Reilly
Olafsson
Brodin
Grant
Soucy
Menell
Goalies
Michalek
Svedberg
Minnesota Wild Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»