Once the Minnesota Wild settle the Quinn Hughes contract situation, the next big question is who gets the open wing spot next to Kirill Kaprizov. Mats Zuccarello is gone after years in that role, and the Wild have a few names in the mix. Max Shabanov looks like the early favorite, Danila Yurov could enter the picture if John Hynes moves him to wing, and Bobby Brink is the less obvious candidate who shouldn’t be dismissed.
Brink’s path to this moment has been a bit crowded at every stop. He was pushed out of Philadelphia by the numbers game, then landed in St.
Paul only to find another squeeze. Minnesota was chasing a playoff spot, Zuccarello and Marcus Johansson were healthy and productive, and Brink didn’t get much runway on the third line.
In 13 regular-season games, he finished with two goals and two assists.
The playoffs didn’t really change the story. When Zuccarello got hurt, Brink had the chance to step in beside Kaprizov, and he got four games and 22 minutes with the superstar.
The result was one assist, after which Minnesota moved him back to the bench. He remained there for the rest of the Wild’s second-round series.
That’s the kind of first impression that can stick with a fan base. Brink is 25 and has three full NHL seasons behind him, so he’s no longer some mystery box.
The Russians bring more upside and more intrigue. Even so, there’s a real path for Brink to open the season in that Zuccarello spot at 5-on-5.
Shabanov makes sense on paper because his game echoes Zuccarello’s. Both are small, undrafted late bloomers whose value comes more from passing than finishing. But that comparison also cuts both ways, because the Wild had a reason for wanting to move on from Zuccarello in the first place.
The Athletic’s Michael Russo and Joe Smith spelled it out then: "The Wild feel Kaprizov relied too heavily on Zuccarello. They want him to start developing chemistry with other players and rid himself of the East-West hockey the elite-passing Zuccarello loves to play."
That North-South versus East-West distinction matters here. North-South hockey is about speed, forechecking and creating space by going straight at teams.
East-West leans on passing and cycling. Shabanov brings some North-South pace to the table, but Brink is built around it.
He may be listed at 5-foot-8, but Brink plays like a guy who doesn’t care about the measurement. As a forechecker, he brings real bite for his size.
According to All Three Zones tracking data, Tyson Foerster was the only Flyers teammate more effective than Brink at recovering dump-ins and helping his team win possession last season. Brink was also strong at retrieving pucks in the defensive zone and moving them up ice, and when he’s asked to carry the puck in, he does it at an above-average rate.
The other part of Brink’s case is that he isn’t just a straight-line grinder. He can pass.
In his first two NHL seasons, he was one of the more effective 5-on-5 passers in the league, averaging 0.82 primary assists per hour. That ranked 38th among 367 forwards with at least 1,000 5-on-5 minutes over that stretch.
For context, that was better than Zuccarello’s 0.77 per hour, even with Zuccarello playing next to one of the league’s best finishers.
Brink’s best assists usually come in two flavors: sharp cross-ice feeds and quick passes in the middle of net-front chaos. All Three Zones says he averaged 1.5 high-danger passes per hour at 5-on-5 in two of the last three seasons.
The only Wild players who can match that in that span are Kaprizov and Matt Boldy. Pat Maroon in 2023-24 and Vinnie Hinostroza in 2025-26 are the only other Minnesota players who have reached that mark even once.
His passing numbers dipped last season, but if Brink gets back to where he was, he could be Minnesota’s third-best setup man behind Kaprizov and Boldy. That matters even more because he shoots right, which fits naturally with feeding Kaprizov one-timers. If Brink can do that while pushing Kaprizov toward a quicker pace, he has a real shot to surprise the State of Hockey and claim that first-line job.
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Minnesota kept its offseason cost low but still made a move that could matter if it clicks, signing Russian forward Maxim Shabanov to a one-year deal after the New York Islanders declined to qualify him as a restricted free agent. For a Wild club always looking for affordable ways to add skill, it is the kind of transaction that does not make a huge splash on paper but can quietly shape the forward group if the player settles in quickly.
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