Here Comes The Kids

Today, the Wild announced that they signed one of their top prospects, Charlie Coyle, to an entry level deal. Coyle is currently playing for the Saint John's Sea Dogs of the Quebec Junior Major Hockey League and is putting up ridiculous numbers in his short time there so far (12-12-24 in 16 games). This coming after his unexpected departure from Boston University, as he wished to better his game by going to Saint John's.

Coyle now joins Saint John's teammate Zack Phillips, Jonas Brodin, Brett Bulmer, and Johan Larsson as Wild prospects who have signed their entry level deals in the past year. The Wild also noted on their news story that the team will try and sign #1 prospect Mikael Granlund following the World Championship in May (Big surprise) and will also go after 2010 draft pick Jason Zucker following the end of the Denver Pioneers season.

If you aren't excited for next season when these kids are in Houston (Or in Granlund's case, he could be in Minnesota next year) playing pro hockey, get excited. In fact, some like Coyle and Phillips could play for Houston following the end of the Sea Dogs season this year(But they will no doubt be making a deep playoff run).

Chuck Fletcher has done a tremendous job in turning his prospect farm into a gold mine after his predecessor burned it down to ashes. There has never been a more deeper prospect pool in the short history of this franchise. And add the fact he has significant cap space going into next year (or two), the future for this team has never been brighter.

With the way the Wild are going down this year, you'd figure they will draft high up again in the draft this year (They could still get a pick in the top 5 if they play their cards right). So they will add more depth to the system one last time, before the team finally takes off.

The kids are coming folks. Sit back and enjoy the ride.

NOTE: Tomorrow I will finally post my top 10 prospects list. I just never got around to finishing that up, so be sure to check that out.