Minnesota Wild Select Luke Kunin #15 Overall

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Chuck Fletcher and the Minnesota selected Luke Kunin with the 15th pick in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft.

About Luke Kunin

The 5-foot-11 center for the University of Wisconsin Badgers is almost universally praised for his character and intelligence. He’s on the small side, but he’s shown that he can overcome that, scoring and pushing the pace of a game, as he did in his freshman season with Wisconsin.

He scored 19 goals and 32 points in 34 games during his first campaign in the NCAA. People say he’s “18 going on 25,” and he appears to feel he’s ready for the NHL soon too. He said after being drafted that he’s going back to school this season and then believes that he’ll be ready to make the jump to the NHL after that.

On the Minnesota Wild Prospect Pool

The Wild’s greatest need in their prospect pool is getting a scoring forward into the fold. They’re bringing in a lot of players into the AHL this year with Alex Tuch, Sam Anas, Mario Lucia, Adam Gilmour and possibly Pavel Jenys all hitting the pro ranks full time. But outside of possibly Tuch, the team doesn’t have a game-breaking scoring forward. More specifically they really need a center, but any forward will do.

Kunin is a center and he’s very smart in the offensive zone, though he may be a little more in the mold of players the Wild frequently pick than a player who is high-risk, high-reward prospect. He doesn’t appear to be a prospect set to become elite, though some scouts believe his intelligence, stick-handling and release gives him that potential to grow into some special.