ST. PAUL, Minn. — Judd Brackett will always remember where he was on Dec. 12 when he saw it hit his X feed that Bill Guerin had executed a blockbuster to bring star defenseman Quinn Hughes to the Minnesota Wild in exchange for Marco Rossi, Zeev Buium, Liam Ohgren and a 2026 first-round pick.

He was in Oxford, Ohio, with Wild college scout Brian Hunter, watching Miami Ohio play Colorado College.

“Hunts and I, we both laughed,” Brackett said. “We didn’t pay a lot of attention, I’ll say, the entire second period, that’s for sure, because we were either returning calls, texts, communicating with our groups and just talking over the trade amongst ourselves. I go to Hunt, ‘Every time I walk in this rink forever, I’ll remember — that was the day that we traded for Quinn Hughes.’”

When you’re the chief scout for an organization, you grow attached to the players you’re responsible for drafting. So the Wild-Vancouver Canucks blockbuster was bittersweet for Brackett and his amateur staff, whose work in selecting Rossi, Buium and Ohgren was the reason the Wild had enough assets to acquire a star like Hughes.

“When a trade involves prospects, obviously there’s an attachment from the group that started with watching them play as maybe a junior player and then their development over the years, so their success is something that’s, as an amateur group, we’re always proud of and you want to see them succeed and be a part of success with the Wild,” Brackett, the Wild’s director of amateur scouting since 2020, said. “But if they are a chip that can be cashed in for a player like Quinn Hughes, I mean, you have to consider it.”

The irony is that the player who came back was one Brackett was abundantly familiar with. He led the Canucks’ draft table when Hughes somehow fell to seventh in the 2018 draft and was snatched up by the Canucks. So there’s a sense of pride with Brackett and his right-hand man, amateur scout Dan Palango, who Brackett brought with him from Vancouver to Minnesota.

“Changing teams is hard enough and getting settled in and then having success in the draft — and then being able to turn your successes into a player that you previously drafted and are very proud of, who’s gone to win a Norris Trophy, is really exciting,” Brackett said. “You’re conflicted when you lose some of your young players. But at the end of the day, no matter how you draft or how well you draft or how well we develop as a team, all of these guys can’t play for the Minnesota Wild. They can’t.

“If you draft well over time, you create depth. You create competition. That’s what we want. We want competition at every position. We want depth at every position, and hopefully, at some point, we’re flush again and that gives Billy and senior management a chance to upgrade and make a move.”

Behind the trade were some draft-day strategies that worked out and some luck, like Rossi falling to them at No. 9 in 2020.

In 2022, the Wild owned the 19th and 24th picks. Danila Yurov was actually higher on the Wild’s draft list than Ohgren, but Brackett and the staff took Ohgren first, gambling that Yurov would still be there for the plucking at 24 because so many teams were worried about drafting Russians, plus there weren’t a lot of viewings because of COVID-19 and Russia-Ukraine war.

And then there’s Buium. According to team sources at the time, the Wild intended to trade the No. 13 pick in 2024 on the draft floor to the Winnipeg Jets for Rutger McGroarty. When Buium fell, the Wild traded a third-round pick to Philadelphia to move up one spot to draft him.

As Guerin said Dec. 13, the Hughes trade probably doesn’t happen if that doesn’t happen.

“Zeev just turned 20 a week ago,” Brackett said. “His upside is enormous. I think the other part of his pedigree is that he’s proven to be a winner. He’s done it at U-18. He’s done it at U-20. He’s done it at the World Championship. So that part of his pedigree is also really important. You want that in your room. You can build around a guy that has that winning mantra. So I think his upside and potential could be there.

“Is it fair to call him Quinn Hughes because he was in a Quinn Hughes trade? Their games are different. I mean, I don’t know that anybody can skate the way Quinn Hughes does. But what they can deliver on the ice and how impactful they can be is certainly parallel.

“But Quinn Hughes is 26 years old — a player entering his prime, essentially. These guys really shouldn’t be available. This was a circumstance and situation where you had to explore it. And if you had the assets to do it, you had to be involved. He’s that good. Now, can Zeev turn around and be a tremendous piece in return for Vancouver? Absolutely, that’s what makes this trade work.”

Including Rossi obviously stings. Few are bigger fans of Rossi than Brackett. A lot of it is sentimental.

“Rossi was the first player that we selected in (my) first draft as a director for the Wild, so obviously there’s always a soft spot there,” he said. “And I know he’s been through a lot health-wise and he’s been challenged. And I’ve been pretty steadfast on what Rossi is as a player and as a person. And I think he continued to prove it. And I think he will continue to improve and be a good player — a really good player — in the league. And do you hate to see him go? Yeah, but I mean, the player we got back is elite, probably the second-best defender in the National Hockey League. So you’ve got to give something to get something.”

Brackett remembers being surprised Hughes fell to the Canucks. If he hadn’t, the Canucks were taking Noah Dobson, who went 12th to the Islanders.

“Look at the 2025 draft, I don’t believe there was a single defenseman drafted under six feet in the entire draft,” Brackett said, explaining the 5-foot-10 Hughes falling. “And you look at roster compositions of when teams win, there’s a lot of copycat and looking, ‘How’d they win. What do we need to do to look a little bit like that team?’ And if you look around, a lot of these winning teams lately — the backend is not filled with guys under six feet, so I think it was just size. There certainly was no question about his mobility, offense or hockey sense. Those things were elite, and they were elite through the national program and at Michigan.”

As of now, this will be the second year in a row the Wild won’t have a first-round pick after trading last year’s to Columbus in the David Jiricek package. They also traded their second-round pick in the Gustav Nyquist trade.

Asked if it’s hard for a scouting staff having so few picks, Brackett said, “Every team goes through cycles, right? And we just went through a series of having multiple first-round picks (in 2021 and 2022), so this is just the way it goes. And at the end of the day, as an amateur scouting staff, we want to win, too. The first goal was for the Minnesota Wild to win and to win a Stanley Cup, so if that costs us draft picks, we’re on board there.

“Does it make our job a little more challenging? For sure. And do things change? Things could change between now and June. That was the message I sent to our amateur staff after the trade was, ‘A) We should be very proud. The picks that we’ve made and the development that has occurred after the draft is what made this trade feasible. But on the other side is, our job doesn’t change. We still do all the background checks. We still write all the reports. We still have our monthly and midyear meetings and discuss.’

“We’re going to put a list together for the first round, even if we don’t have a first-round pick. So, it doesn’t change the job. It makes Friday on draft day a little less exciting. But you know what? If that’s the price of winning and having Quinn Hughes on this team and giving us a better chance to win, we’re on board.”

Zuccarello on Dunn hit

After missing five games with a concussion, Mats Zuccarello returned to the lineup against Edmonton and had a couple of assists. Sunday was our first chance to get his opinion of the unpenalized hit that he took by Seattle’s Vince Dunn on Dec. 8. After reviewing the play on the ice after initially calling a major, the officials decided the initial point of contact was to the chest and rescinded the penalty. The Department of Player Safety agreed and felt the head contact was unavoidable.

“I think it’s a hockey play,” Zuccarello said. “Like, obviously, he hits my head a lot. I wouldn’t get hurt if it wasn’t contact to the head. But it is what it is. I’m back now, so I don’t think about it too much.”

Dunn hit on Zuccarello pic.twitter.com/5jPq7soJdy

— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) December 9, 2025

Props to Draisaitl

The Edmonton Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl reached the 1,000-point milestone last week against the Penguins, making him the first German-born player to complete the feat.

Count the Wild’s Nico Sturm as one of his proud countrymen — and not surprised.

“You watch him play, and most nights he’s noticeable, of course, but you look at the score sheet, and he’s got a goal and two assists,” Sturm said. “The best players in the world, that’s what they do: They always find a way to contribute. There was a time when people said, ‘Yeah, he’s just feeding off of Connor (McDavid)’, but he’s become the prototype center: big, strong, good at draws, lethal shot … probably the best passer in the league, especially on his backhand. The way he shields the puck — when he puts his arm out, it’s very, very hard to get the puck.

“You think of the prototype No. 1 center? That’s what he is.”

Sturm, who could be seen congratulating Draisaitl during pregame warmups before Saturday’s Wild-Oilers meeting, hasn’t had much of an opportunity to play with Draisaitl, even at the international level, so he’s looking forward to being a teammate at February’s Milan Olympics.

Duhaime, Fleury hijinks

Before Brandon Duhaime returned with the Washington Capitals to face the Wild last week, he had one question:

“Does (Marc-Andre Fleury) have a credential to the locker room or anything?” Duhaime quipped. “Is he part of the staff?”

Duhaime, on the Fellowship of the Rink podcast, joked that he’d bring a team security guard with him. He enjoyed the colorful back-and-forth prank wars with Fleury while with the Wild but acknowledged that the Hall of Famer got the better of him.

What was he thinking, trying to poke the prank king?

“Not a lot of thinking went into that,” Duhaime said. “He probably did something first, to be honest. We’re the young guys, we were always poking at him. Nothing too crazy. I don’t know how I got dragged under. It was all of us doing it. And then all of a sudden I got caught in the crosshairs.”

Why Jones was recalled

Ben Jones was reassigned to AHL Iowa before the holiday roster freeze Friday and recalled two days later. Fans were curious Sunday why the Wild would recall the center only to not play him against the Avs, with Tyler Pitlick already on the roster as an extra forward.

The answer is simple: a classy gesture.

Jones had been on the roster from Oct. 14 through Dec. 19, so in the organization’s mind, he’s a full-fledged Minnesota Wild player, and they felt he should be part of the team’s holiday party on Monday.

Barring any injuries on Tuesday against Nashville, Jones could be reassigned after the game.

FanDuel TV concerns

The Sports Business Journal reported Sunday that if Main Street Sports Group, owner of the FanDuel Sports Network regional networks, cannot complete a sale to DAZN, it will “wind down and dissolve its business” at the end of the NBA and NHL seasons. The report said that the company missed a rights fee payment to the St. Louis Cardinals and that NBA teams were informed on a call last week that a combined $180 million in payments for January and beyond “might not arrive.”

A Wild source said that the team has been working closely with the NHL and tracking the situation. They believe, at a minimum, they will be on the air for the rest of the season and expect to be paid by the company. After that, though, who knows? There’s no doubt the Wild have been considering options for a few years and will be ready to react if suddenly Fan Duel Sports Network is shuttered.

ECHL strike’s impact

With ECHL players in a contract dispute with the league that could lead to them going on strike after the holidays, the Wild have been discussing how to handle Iowa Heartlanders players who are contracted to them.

The most likely outcome that if there’s a strike, they will recall those players to AHL Iowa and have a taxi squad with the extra players.

HOF chooses site

The Minnesota Hockey Hall of Fame has chosen Inver Grove Heights as its location for a 120,000-square-foot, multi-purpose facility and museum. The hope is to break ground in 2026, with a grand opening projected for late 2028.

The project will be located on 40 acres adjacent to Interstate 494 and just east of the Vikings Lakes and the Minnesota Vikings training complex.