
The headline on the front page of Thursday's Star Tribune sports page read: "Finnish star starts a new Wild era." Mikael Granlund, a 20-year-old star in Finland, hasn't played a single game in the NHL and already he is being built up as another Wayne Gretzky, or Ricky Rubio on skates. Is there any doubt that the competition while playing with an elite Finnish team against other European teams is a lot different than facing proven NHL stars? Still, history is on the Wild's side, since the only other first-round picks they have drafted from Europe before Granlund were Marian Gaborik and Mikko Koivu, taken in 2000 and 2001, the first two drafts in franchise history. They selected another European in the first round of ...
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