Wild reassign former first-round pick

Given that the Minnesota Wild are expected to activate forward Kirill Kaprizov and defenseman Jared Spurgeon before Thursday's game against the Utah Hockey Club, at least one player needed to come off the roster. According to a team announcement, the player in question will be defenseman David Jiricek, who the team has reassigned to their AHL affiliate, the Iowa Wild.

It was difficult to ascertain any concrete expectations for Jiricek in his first real go-around with the Wild. Although he had been on the NHL roster after the team acquired him from the Columbus Blue Jackets, he had only participated in practice.

Once the team originally sent him to AHL Iowa, he was expected to continue or improve upon his nine-goal, 22-point effort in 33 games he had achieved from the start of the 2023-24 season with the AHL’s Cleveland Monsters. Instead, he fell short of those expectations, tallying only two assists in his first 11 games.

The Wild recalled Jiricek on Jan. 8 to replace the injured Spurgeon but he produced similar results. Jiricek went scoreless over the first four games of the call-up, averaging 12:56 of ice time per game.

Still, Jiricek was determined not to leave the Wild with a bad taste in their mouth, showing flashes of exactly why he was drafted with the sixth overall selection of the 2022 NHL Draft. In two games against the Nashville Predators and Colorado Avalanche, he scored one goal and one assist with a +2 rating while averaging 13:16 of ice time.

It was readily apparent that Jiricek had more confidence with the puck and was more engaged in the action because of it. As he heads back to Des Moines to continue his development with the Wild’s AHL affiliate, the team can only hope he brings that same confidence to his AHL contests.