After making a strong NHL debut last spring, Liam Ohgren was presumed to have a job waiting for him this season with the Wild.

The Wild’s first-round pick in the 2022 entry draft, Ohgren, 20, made his NHL debut last spring after his professional team in Sweden was bounced from the playoffs and was strong in four games. The winger looked like he belonged, and earned a goal and an assist in a victory at San Jose.

But midway through camp this fall, Ohgren still hadn’t found that groove. So coach John Hynes gave him a message: Stop thinking, just play. That seemed to work, and on Monday, Ohgren solidified a spot on the opening night roster.

“Right now, he looks like he’s just playing. He’s Liam Ohgren,” Hynes said. “He’s influencing the game with speed. He’s got good offensive abilities, which he has showcased, and I think his competitiveness in the battle situations has been strong. And I like his attention to detail when he’s in defensive situations.”

Ohgren and two other rookies, goaltender Jesper Wallstedt and center Marat Khusnutdinov, were among the 23 healthy players in practice on Monday, the deadline for NHL teams to set their opening night rosters.

“I had a goal to make the team and to be up here for the whole season,” Ohgren said. “I feel like I’m on the right path. I haven’t heard much, but it feels good I’m still here.”

Final lines and pairings for Thursday’s 7 p.m. puck drop against Columbus at Xcel Energy Center are not set. Ohgren, a 6-foot, 188-pound left wing, projects as a fast, physical scoring threat and has played with forwards such as Marco Rossi, Joel Eriksson Ek and Marcus Johansson in preseason games. But Hynes said, “I think the way he plays, he can play on any line.”

“Does he have top six potential? For sure.” the coach said. “Has he shown that in preseason, that he looks good with some of those guys? Absolutely. But if he has to play, does he have to play in the quote-unquote top six? No.

“If he’s in the top 12, that’s another part of us trying to be a deeper team. I think coming out of this training camp and seeing the team, I think we are significantly deeper up front with the style of lines that we have and the caliber players that we have. Liam’s worked his way up, worked his way into the mix, and now we’ll just keep evaluating from there.”

Hynes said rookie defenseman Daemon Hunt might have earned an NHL job out of camp if the Wild didn’t already have seven defensemen on one-way contracts. Hunt, 22, made his NHL debut last season and was minus-1 with an assist in 12 games.

Mixing and matching

In general, the lines seem to line up this way: Kirill Kaprizov, Marco Rossi, Mats Zuccarello; Johansson, Eriksson Ek, Matt Boldy; Marcus Foligno, Ryan Hartman, Yakov Trenin; Freddy Gaudreau, Khusnutdinov, Jakub Lauko.

The defense pairings appear to be Jared Spurgeon and Jake Middleton, Brock Faber and Jonas Brodin, Zach Bogosian and Jon Merril or Declan Chisholm. That last decision might depend on which defenseman plays the point on the second power play unit, Spurgeon or Chisholm.

“Right now you have Faber running the top unit, and I think Spurgeon has played well and has done a nice job,” Hynes said. “Then you’ve gotta look at the penalty kill side of things, want to look at 5-on-5 play. I think some of those things will play themselves out, but I wouldn’t say that everything is automatic, either.”

Briefly

Both Middleton (upper body) and Boldy (lower body) were full participants in practice Monday and are on track to play on Thursday, Hynes said.