The Minnesota Wild’s amateur scouting meetings begin Monday in St. Paul, Minn., and the team’s director of amateur scouting, Judd Brackett, will not be in attendance.
According to league sources, Brackett is leaving the team after nearly six years to accept an elevated role with another organization. The Toronto Maple Leafs and Vancouver Canucks, Brackett’s former team, have shown interest, per sources. Both make sense, with new regimes in need of help building out their scouting departments. John Chayka and Mats Sundin were recently hired to run Toronto’s hockey operations department, and the Canucks just hired Ryan Johnson as general manager, with Daniel and Henrik Sedin serving as co-presidents of hockey ops.
Brackett, 49, was in the final year of his contract. The Wild offered him an extension in December, but Brackett was seeking more responsibility and an elevated role with the franchise. With three assistant GMs — Mat Sells, Chris Kelleher and Mike Murray — promoting Brackett was not something Wild GM and president of hockey operations Bill Guerin was willing to do.
Brackett spent the past five years running the Wild’s draft table after 12 years with Vancouver, the last five of which he served as the Canucks’ director of amateur scouting.
Brackett will not run the Wild’s draft this month. Sells and director of European scouting Ricard Persson are expected to run the draft until Guerin opens the director of amateur scouting role to internal and external candidates.
The Wild also have several amateur scouts entering the final month of their contracts, so it will be interesting to see if they re-sign or if the team overhauls the department.
Minnesota currently has five picks in the 2026 draft after trading its first-round pick to Vancouver in the Quinn Hughes deal, its second-round pick to the Nashville Predators in the 2025 Gustav Nyquist trade and its seventh-round pick to the Florida Panthers for Jeff Petry in March.
The Wild own their third-, fourth-, fifth- and sixth-rounders, plus a fifth from the San Jose Sharks, acquired in the 2023 Calen Addison trade.
Brackett made seven first-round picks during his Minnesota tenure (Marco Rossi, Jesper Wallstedt, Carson Lambos, Liam Ohgren, Danila Yurov, Charlie Stramel and Zeev Buium). All but Lambos have become valuable players or assets so far, and Stramel is turning pro next season after two years at Wisconsin and two at Michigan State. Rossi, Ohgren and Buium were used in the Hughes trade.
Of the nine second-round picks selected during Brackett’s time, only Marat Khusnutdinov has become an NHL regular, and he was traded to the Boston Bruins in advance of the 2025 trade deadline for Justin Brazeau. Hunter Haight looks like he has a chance to become a quality NHLer. Riley Heidt has promise, Rieger Lorenz just turned pro and Ryder Ritchie remains in college.