The Minnesota Wild have spent years looking for the kind of center who can grow into Kirill Kaprizov’s long-term running mate, and Danila Yurov deserves the first shot to prove he can be that player.
That’s the real choice in front of Minnesota. Ryan Hartman is useful, reliable, and proven next to Kaprizov, but he looks more like the fallback option than the answer to a franchise-wide problem down the middle.
He can handle center in stretches, bring some bite, and do the dirty work that opens space for Kaprizov. He even delivered 23 goals and 43 points in 76 games last year.
That matters. It just doesn’t settle the bigger question.
What the Wild have not found is a high-end offensive center they can trust for the long haul. Hartman can keep a line afloat.
He can even make it hard-nosed and effective. But Minnesota needs more than that if it wants Kaprizov’s line to become truly dominant.
The missing piece is another layer of puck movement, controlled entries, and creativity.
Yurov offers that possibility, which is why the Wild should resist the urge to simply slide Hartman back into the middle and call it good. The 2022 first-round pick was drafted as a winger/center hybrid, and his skating, awareness, forechecking, and ability to get to dangerous areas make him an intriguing option. Elite Prospects has pointed to his constant scanning, smart puck routes, physical engagement, and work on offensive-zone retrievals - exactly the kind of traits you want from a center playing alongside a puck-dominant winger like Kaprizov.
This isn’t just a hopeful theory, either. In his rookie season, Yurov showed he could handle different kinds of assignments.
He centered an offense-first line with Kaprizov and Vladimir Tarasenko, and he also worked on a more defensive unit with Marcus Foligno and Yakov Trenin. Both lines posted strong expected-goals share numbers.
That versatility is important because it suggests Yurov isn’t just a sheltered scorer waiting for ideal circumstances. The bigger question is whether the 22-year-old can finish enough chances to justify the role. Through his first 26 NHL games, he had three goals and 5 assists for 8 points.
Still, there were encouraging signs underneath that modest production. Yurov generated 4.7 expected goals, ranked sixth among Wild skaters in expected goals per 60 minutes at 0.91, and got 14 of his 39 shots from high-danger areas. In other words, he was getting to the right places even if the finishing wasn’t always there yet.
That’s why Minnesota should open camp with Yurov getting a real look between Kaprizov and a skilled right wing, rather than treating Hartman as the automatic first-line center. The Wild need enough time and enough favorable usage to actually learn what Yurov can do.
If he can’t handle faceoffs, if he gets buried defensively, or if the offense never comes, then Hartman can step back in. That’s the beauty of having Hartman around: he’s the ideal insurance policy.
But he shouldn’t be the ceiling. Minnesota already used a first-round pick on Yurov, and the organization badly needs growth at center from within. The only way to know whether the answer has been in-house all along is to give him the job first.
In Other News...
Wild Prospect Depth Still Leaves One Big Reason For Concern
Minnesotas prospect pool does have some real building blocks, and the latest look at the organizations young talent shows why there is at least some optimism about the next wave. Charlie Stramels size and projection continue to stand out, Danila Yurov brings a different kind of skill, and the group overall gives the Wild a mix of physicality and upside that could eventually matter at the NHL level. For a franchise that has spent years trying to thread the needle between competing now and staying stocked for later, that matters.
Still, the broader evaluation leaves one clear concern hanging over the room: even with multiple intriguing names to sort through, the system is being judged not just by depth but by whether it has enough high-end certainty. The prospects may offer varied paths to useful roles, but the analysis makes clear that the biggest question is whether any of them can become the kind of difference-maker a contender leans on when the games tighten up. [Read more 🡒]
The Wild Must Fix These Flaws To Make A Real Playoff Push
The Wild spent plenty of last season trying to prove they could be more than a competent regular-season team, but the same flaws kept showing up when the games got tighter. Their penalty kill never settled in, and the problems became even harder to hide in the playoffs, where special teams can swing a series and every lost battle matters. At the same time, Minnesotas centers had their share of trouble on faceoffs, which undercut possession and made it harder to control the kind of games a playoff team needs to own.
There was some progress in the first round against Dallas, where Minnesota looked better and found ways to raise its level, but the next matchup exposed the gap between being competitive and being ready for a deep run. The Avalanche outplayed the Wild in the second round, and that is the standard Minnesota has to chase if it wants this to become a real postseason push. Fixing those weak spots is the obvious path, but the bigger question is whether the Wild can turn that regular-season ceiling into something sturdier when the pressure rises. [Read more 🡒]