{"id":495457,"date":"2026-03-09T23:11:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T23:11:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/495457\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T23:11:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T23:11:20","slug":"minnesota-wild-draft-pick-and-ohl-standout-commits-to-western-michigan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/495457\/","title":{"rendered":"Minnesota Wild Draft Pick and OHL Standout Commits to Western Michigan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The defending NCAA Champion Western Michigan Broncos added a major offensive talent for next season in Adam Ben\u00e1k.<\/p>\n<p>A 2025 Fourth Round Pick of the Minnesota Wild, the Plzen, Czechia native has lit up junior hockey. Ben\u00e1k spent last season with the USHL&#8217;s Youngstown Phantoms before migrating to join the Brantford Bulldogs of the OHL. He has also represented his native Czechia at the World Junior U17, U18 and U20 Championships, winning U20 Silver medal in 2026. So far in 2025-26, Ben\u00e1k has 68 points (26 goals + 42 assists) in 42 games.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>I had the privilege of watching Ben\u00e1k on the Phantoms in person, and his skill is incredible. Benak utilizes his smaller 5 foot 8 frame to slither past defenders, reminding me of former San Diego Chargers running back LaDainian Tomlinson.<\/p>\n<p>As for Ben\u00e1k&#8217;s development path, he is a 2007 birth year, meaning he has two more seasons of junior eligibility before aging out. It wouldn&#8217;t surprise me if he played one more year at the OHL level before heading to the NCAA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The defending NCAA Champion Western Michigan Broncos added a major offensive talent for next season in Adam Ben\u00e1k.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5118],"tags":[657,620,5,161,38,5280,4,625,162,13988],"class_list":["post-495457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-minnesota-wild","tag-adam-benak","tag-brantford-bulldogs","tag-hockey","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-wild","tag-minnesotawild","tag-nhl","tag-ohl","tag-wild","tag-youngstown-phantoms"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116201749481281352","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}