- Wild hire former Devils assistant GM Dan MacKinnon as assistant director of amateur scouting
- Alex Goligoski promoted to player development coach after a season as an advisor
- Read below for how Minnesota is restocking a scouting staff that lost Judd Brackett
Bill Guerin went out and got himself an experienced set of eyes for the Wild’s draft table.
Minnesota announced Monday that Dan MacKinnon is joining the organization as assistant director of amateur scouting. He spent the past decade in the New Jersey front office, the last seven years of it as the Devils’ assistant general manager and senior vice president of hockey operations.
Guerin packed three more moves into the same release. Janik Beichler comes aboard as a European amateur scout, Elizabeth Hudson was named executive assistant to the president/GM and hockey operations, and Alex Goligoski was promoted from player development advisor to player development coach.
MacKinnon has been doing this a long time. He took over Nashville’s scouting department in 2000 and moved to Pittsburgh in 2007, sticking around for both Stanley Cup wins in 2009 and 2016.
New Jersey brought him in ahead of the 2016-17 season as director of player personnel, bumped him up to assistant GM and senior VP in 2019, then handed him the general manager job with AHL Utica in 2021. That run ended May 1, when the Devils announced they would not renew his contract.
The Wild had a real hole to fill. Amateur scouting director Judd Brackett left for Toronto in June after six years running the draft table in St. Paul, where he called the names of Jesper Wallstedt, Zeev Buium and Danila Yurov.
Beichler arrives from Elite Prospects, where he was director of European scouting. He also put in seven seasons scouting Europe for the WHL’s Spokane Chiefs.
Goligoski’s bump keeps a 1,078-game NHL career in the building. The Grand Rapids, Minn. native piled up 87 goals and 388 assists across 17 seasons with Pittsburgh, Dallas, Arizona and Minnesota, and he was part of the Penguins team that won the Cup in 2009.
His work is with the defensemen in the system, and he knows the room. Goligoski played his final three NHL seasons in a Wild sweater before hanging them up in 2024.
Two months after losing his draft boss to Toronto, Guerin has a former assistant general manager working the amateur file.
