Barring a trade, Friday night’s first round of the 2025 NHL draft looks to be a quiet one for Minnesota Wild general manager Bill Guerin and his front office team.

The Wild traded away their first-round pick when they acquired defense prospect David Jiricek from Columbus last November, meaning the Blue Jackets now own the 20th overall pick once owned by Minnesota.

With the Wild franchise celebrating 25 years, this will be their 26th go-round in the draft, which has usually been held at one site — Xcel Energy Center was the host in 2011 — with all 32 teams sending their brain trust to one arena to focus on their future. The league is trying a new “decentralized” approach in 2025, with the top three dozen or so picks expected to be at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles so they can hold up their new employer’s sweater when their name is called.

The key personnel from each NHL team will be at their home base making their selections remotely, as opposed to sitting at tables next to the front offices of other teams. Guerin and his crew will be conducting the draft from their TRIA Rink offices in downtown St. Paul on Friday and Saturday.

“When you’re at the draft table, you’re talking in code, you don’t want to use names,” said Judd Brackett, the Wild’s director of amateur scouting. “In this scenario, it makes it easier — but there are things that are advantageous about being in person, too. But it’s going to be great to get our group together this week, and we’re excited.”

With 25 Wild drafts in the past and another looming, here is a look at some draft facts as they relate to the Wild.

When is the draft, and how can I watch?

Round 1 begins at 6 p.m. CDT Friday, with ESPN televising the first 32 picks. Rounds 2-7 will take place Saturday starting at 11 a.m. CDT, and can be seen on NHL Network.

Which names will we hear called first?

NHL general managers are practiced in the art of deception, and trades, both up and down, are certainly in play. But as it stands, the first three selections belong to the New York Islanders, San Jose Sharks and Chicago Blackhawks, in that order.

The top three prospects, according to NHL Central Scouting and most experts who have made a mock draft, are major junior defenseman Matthew Schaefer, major junior forward Michael Misa, and Boston College forward James Hagens.

If you’re waiting to hear a Minnesota name, expect Woodbury/Hill-Murray defenseman Logan Hensler, who had a top-notch freshman season at Wisconsin, to go sometime in the top 20.

Overall, Brackett said this year’s draft is considered “forward heavy.”

When will the Wild pick?

This could be a light weekend for Minnesota, which heads into the draft owning just four selections. The Wild are first on the clock in the second round, 52nd overall, on Saturday.

They also select 121st overall in Round 4, 141st (Round 5) and 180th (Round 6).

While there are always a few late-round gems out there, the reality is that the names called by the Wild on Saturday will more than likely start their pro careers in Iowa, and have much to prove before cracking an NHL lineup.

Of the 24 players on the Wild’s NHL roster last season, just three — Vinnie Hinostroza, Jared Spurgeon and Jake Middleton — were picked after Round 5, while Justin Brazeau, Freddie Gaudreau and Mats Zuccarello were undrafted. Fourteen were picked in the first or second rounds.

Where did all of the Wild’s 2025 picks go?

Several players currently on the Wild roster or in their system are there because Guerin used 2025 draft picks to get them here.

Jiricek cost them the 2025 first round pick and a few players. Their third-round pick went to Philadelphia in order to move up one spot in the 2024 draft so they could select defenseman Zeev Buium 12th overall.

The fourth-round pick in this draft went to Anaheim in 2023 in the deal that brought defenseman John Klingberg to Minnesota for 21 games.

Similarly, a 2022 trade with the Rangers brought tough guy Ryan Reaves to the Wild for 67 games in exchange for their fifth-round 2025 pick. And defenseman Zach Bogosian is a member of the Wild because Guerin sent the seventh-round pick to Tampa Bay in 2023.

Barring more draft weekend moves, the Wild will use a fourth-round pick they got from Toronto in 2023 in exchange for Ryan O’Reilly and Josh Pilar, and a fifth-round selection they got from Columbus as part of the Jiricek deal.

Worst pick in Wild history?

The Wild’s first general manager, Doug Risebrough, did some great things in building the franchise. But after drafting Marian Gaborik in 2000, his run of first-round picks was notable for many of the wrong reasons.

In 2005, he used the fourth overall pick on Benoit Pouliot, who played fewer than 75 games for Minnesota. Among those picked later in the 2005 first round were future NHL All Stars Carey Price, Tukka Rask, Anze Kopitar, Mark Staal and T.J. Oshie.

Risebrough and his front office team used their next three first-round picks on James Sheppard, Colton Gillies and Tyler Cuma.

But perhaps the biggest Wild draft disappointment came in 2004.

If there was one criticism from provincial Minnesota hockey fans in the early days of this franchise, it was the lack of home-grown talent in the system. Risebrough sought to change that, using the 12th pick to grab Savage, Minn., native A.J. Thelen, a big defenseman who had cut his teeth at Shattuck-St. Mary’s and was coming off a monster freshman season at Michigan State.

Less than a year after his name was called by the Wild, Thelen had been removed from the Spartans roster after a zero-goal season. He played one game for the Wild’s AHL affiliate in Houston.

Best pick in Wild history?

Some notable names have been grabbed by the Wild in the first round, beginning in 2000 when their first-ever draft pick, third overall, became the team’s first star in Gaborik.

But it will be hard for this franchise, or any franchise, to top the value they found in 2015 when former Minnesota general manager Chuck Fletcher used a fifth-round pick, 135th overall, to select a small town Russian kid named Kirill Kaprizov.

Worst draft-day trade in Wild history?

It looked like little more than a swap of later-round draft picks on draft day in 2014 when Tampa Bay wanted to move up one spot in the third round. Minnesota got third- and seventh-round picks from the Lightning, which Fletcher used to select collegian Louie Belpedio and former Gophers defenseman Jack Sadek, who played a combined total of four games for the Wild.

With the pick acquired from Minnesota, the Lightning grabbed Brayden Point, who has scored more than 300 goals in the NHL over the past nine seasons, and was Tampa Bay’s leading goal scorer on 2020 and 2021 Stanley Cup champion teams.

Best draft-day trade in Wild history?

The recently-retired Cal Clutterbuck was a fan favorite in Minnesota, beloved for his hard-nosed, “hit anything that moves” style and his old-time hockey attitude on the ice. So, some heads turned on draft day in 2013, when the Wild sent a third-round pick and Clutterbuck to the Islanders in exchange for Swiss forward Nino Niederreiter.

In his first five seasons with the Wild, before he was traded to Carolina in 2019, Niederreiter was a well-liked forward who averaged better than 20 goals a season.