Minnesota Wild Will Soon Recall Joel Eriksson Ek
According to Michael Russo of the Star Tribune, the Minnesota Wild will soon recall Joel Eriksson Ek from Farjestads of the Swedish league, who were knocked out of the playoffs on Friday. As Russo explains, Eriksson Ek will burn one of his entry-level years should he play in one more game this season. The 20-year old forward played in nine matches at the beginning of the season for the Wild.
The 20th-overall pick in 2015, Eriksson Ek actually racked up five points in that NHL preview, and went on to record 16 in 26 games for his Swedish club. In seven playoff games for Farjestads he scored six points but it wasn’t enough to get by HV 71. Russo notes that though Eriksson Ek can play center, he finished the year as a left winger.
With the Wild going 2-7-1 over their last ten and losing their grip on the second seed from the Central division—Nashville and St. Louis are now just six points and seven points behind them respectively—they need to turn things around fast. Eriksson Ek should give the lineup an injection of youth, and hopefully help the team start winning again. After consecutive losses to Philadelphia, Vancouver and Detroit, the Wild are reeling as they head into their matchup with the Washington Capitals.
For Eriksson Ek, burning a year of his entry-level contract doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be making more money in the long run. Often teams choose this strategy to get a player onto their second contract with just two years of performance under their belt, as Vancouver did recently with Brock Boeser. He’ll now be on track to become an RFA in 2019-20.
Wild Assign Joel Eriksson Ek To Farjestad
Although he made a strong impression with Minnesota so far this season – including scoring in his NHL debut – the team announced that they have assigned center Joel Eriksson Ek to Farjestad of the Swedish Hockey League.
Eriksson Ek, Minnesota’s first round pick (20th overall) back in 2015, has played in nine games for the Wild, scoring five points (2-3-5) while logging 10:07 of ice time per game. However, as he’s just 19 years old, the team had to make a decision as to whether or not to burn the first year of his entry-level contract this season, something that would have happened had he played in one more NHL game. He had been a healthy scratch for two straight games while the team determined what their decision was going to be.
While the team could in theory recall Eriksson Ek if they so desire, the odds of doing so seem highly unlikely. As a result, his contract will be eligible to ‘slide’ which should result in a slightly lower cap hit for next season (the cap hit is reduced by the signing bonus paid this year divided by three, or just under $31K).
Minnesota had the option to assign Eriksson Ek either to Sweden or to their AHL affiliate in Iowa but GM Chuck Fletcher indicated earlier this week that the team felt it would be better for his development to play back at home as well as the upcoming World Junior Championships.
[Related: Updated Wild Depth Chart]
Snapshots: Vegas, Eriksson Ek, Shootouts
Las Vegas owner Bill Foley is hoping to accelerate the final expansion payment to the league by the beginning of March, reports Sports Illustrated’s Alex Prewitt (Twitter link). Until the payment is made in full, the pending expansion team (whose named will be officially revealed one week from today), the team is not permitted to be represented at any league events such as the Board of Governors meetings or GM meetings, including the one taking place today in Toronto.
The reason for the March 1st deadline is to allow the team to get approval from the league to pursue undrafted college free agents. Many of their seasons end towards the end of March but they want to ensure they’re all set well before then so that they can get into the bidding process. As they have to essentially build an entire farm system in the span of a few months between the expansion draft, free agency, and trades, it’s likely that Las Vegas will be extremely active in the college UFA market this year.
Other news from around the league:
- Although the Wild can assign 19 year old center Joel Eriksson Ek to either the AHL or the SHL if they decide to not burn the first year of his entry-level deal, GM Chuck Fletcher tells Michael Russo of the Star-Tribune that their preference would be to have him play in Sweden and at the World Juniors next month. Eriksson Ek has played nine games so far which means that the next game will officially begin his entry level contract. The team will hold him out of the lineup tonight for the second straight game to further ponder the route they’ll take.
- One topic that was discussed during the GM meetings that will be carried over to their meeting in March is potentially changing to international shootout rules, reports Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston (Twitter link). In international shootout rules, players can shoot as many times as a team likes after the first set of three shooters make their attempts. The thought process behind this might be to better showcase the elite shootout players while hoping to avoid some of the longer shootouts that see players further down the roster forced to take shots.