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Photos by Jim Rosvold, Kyle Oen/Vintage MN Hockey O C T O B E R 2 0 2 0 | M H J ON L I N E . C O M 27 P R E S E N T E D B Y go to a well-run organization and have a good first college season for a proud, successful program in Duluth run by the well-respected Scott Sandelin. Interviewing Skills After the disappointment of los- ing out in the state tournament and the sting of his successful high school career coming to an end this past spring, Kaiser prepared hard to go to Buffalo, N.Y., for the annual NHL scouting combine. But like so many things, the combine was cancelled due to COVID-19. So, Kaiser never got to show off for the scouts when it came to fit- ness testing and never got to inter- view face to face with the scouts of 31 NHL hockey teams. Like all of us in this weird new world, Kaiser got really, really comfortable in front of the laptop camera talking to scouts virtually. "I Zoom interviewed with probably a team every day for about three weeks," Kaiser said, laughing. "So, it was pretty busy. I learned how to interview pretty well and talked to a lot of people, which was fun to meet a bunch of new people and talk hockey and things I like doing." One is ceramics. The other is golf. Kaiser, other than a couple 5-on- 5 hockey practices each week of the summer at Augsburg to pre- pare to go to UMD, got really good at satisfying "my golf addiction." The State of Bread & Butter Prospects As for hockey, Kaiser sits atop a 16-person list of Minnesotans ranked by the Central Scouting Service for this upcoming draft. He stands at No. 37, which could make him a second- or third- round pick if NHL teams accept those rankings. Right on Kaiser's tail includes Maple Grove's Brock Faber (University of Minnesota), Hermantown's Blake Biondi (UMD) and Rosemount's Jake Ratzlaff (University of Minnesota). This is not expected to be a year where Minnesota has a first-round pick in the NHL Draft, but there's a lot of depth. "It doesn't have that star power, like that top line guy. There's not a (Casey) Mittelstadt or a Nick Bjugstad," Brackett said. "But I still think there's always quality players in Minnesota. You've got Faber with the (U.S.) National pro- gram, Wyatt Kaiser, for sure. There's bread and butter, really good skaters and hockey sense is sort of the calling card of Minnesota. "And there's going to be players moving on to college next year that are going in this year's draft. It just doesn't have the typi- cal sort of star power, but I wouldn't call it a down year. There's always players in Minnesota—good players." Scouts Focusing on Video This was also a weird year for scouts. Scouts like to see players in big games, yet many of those big games and events like the Frozen Four were canceled. At least scouts got to see the state high school hockey tournament. "It was full steam ahead up until everything ended in mid- March," said Vegas Golden Knights scout Keith Hendrickson, a former UMD Bulldog and longtime coach at Virginia. "After that, we didn't know when the draft was going to be until, geez, I don't know, sometime, proba- bly mid-June, I think. "Not being able to scout kids through the end of March and April, that doesn't help any of us no matter what team you "I just kept working, kept trying to learn things about the game. You never can know enough." —W YATT KAISER, ANDOVER