Minnesota Wild Prospects Turn Heads at 2025 World Junior Championship
This season, the Minnesota Wild are doing an incredible job of fighting through injuries to some of the most important players on roster, while remaining one of the top teams in the Western Conference. At 26-11-4, the 2024 Wild have already collected 56 points on the season, which they will try to add to tonight vs rival Colorado.
Minnesota Wild top prospects impress at 2025 World Juniors
While the present looks pretty damn good for Minnesota, injuries aside, it may be even brighter when you look to the future, where the Wild have a top-10 ranked prospect pool, according to multiple prospect rankings, including The Athletic and Elite Prospects.
Speaking of prospects, there were a few of the Minnesota Wild’s best amatuer youngsters turning heads at the 49th annual 2025 World Junior Championship (U-20), a top international prospect tournament that has been around since 1977. This year’s tourney began the day after Christmas and wrapped up earlier this week.
Zeev Buium (19 y/o) – USA
And there may not be a player in the entire field who impressed more than University of Denver defenseman and 2024 Wild draftee, Zeev Buium. Minnesota 12th overall pick in last year’s NHL Draft played a crucial role in USA Hockey winning gold for the second-straight time, something they’ve never done in the tournament’s history.
Not only did Buium score 2 goals and provide 4 assists, with a +10 (+/-), but he also assisted on the gold medal-winning overtime goal. It wasn’t just any assist either. This was a tape-to-tape stretch pass of 100 feet to spring a breakaway for Teddy Stiga, his first goal of the entire tournament.
Every team that passed on Zeev Buium (except for the San Jose Sharks, Macklin Celebrini) made a major mistake in my opinion.
— Vinnie Parise (@VinnieParise) January 6, 2025
The #mnwild have a STUD.
What a pass to set up the Golden Goal 🥇pic.twitter.com/lmWyDOwPem
Buium, 19, recorded the first 50-point season by a University of Denver freshman since 1983-84, leading the team to a 2024 NCAA National Championship with 11 goals and 39 assists. As a freshman, the left-shooting defenseman was the second-youngest player in all of college hockey.
Buium will one day bring quite an influx of two-way talent at a Wild blue line that already features 2020 2nd round pick Brock Faber (19), who’s already one of the most consistent defensemen in the sport, along with newly acquired 2022 1st round pick David Jiricek (21).
Jiricek who was recalled for the first time by the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday, in emergency fashion, after Faber — who had played 131 consecutive games to start his career — suffered an injury against St. Louis on Tuesday night.
Rasmus Kumpulainen (19 y/o) – Finland
Defenseman Aron Kiviharju and center Rasmus Kumpulainen of Finland also showed promise. In 6 games during the World Junior tournament, Kumpulainen (19 y/o) scored twice and added one assist.
Related: Minnesota Wild Recall New Defenseman to Replace Brock Faber
The Wild’s 2023 second-round pick (No. 53 overall) didn’t spend any time in the sin bin, either. One thing seems clear from watching some of his highlights. Nobody in the Minnesota Wild organization will have to encourage Rasmus to shoot the puck.
Finland finally breaks through at the end of the power-play to make it 3-0!#WorldJuniors pic.twitter.com/HhXrwxwEhC
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) January 2, 2025
zeev chucking a ufo tongue out looking like MJ pic.twitter.com/SngLp4aB4h
— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) January 6, 2025
Aron Kiviharju (18 y/o) – Finland
Aron Kiviharju, 18, played in all seven of Finland’s games. He didn’t score any goals, but he did assist on three, and he played a huge role as a top-line forward. Finland’s biggest problem all tournament was their lack of offensive firepower.
That made Kiviharju’s role as a defensive setup specialist that much more important. A fourth round pick by Minnesota in 2024, Aron does need to learn how to be more responsible on defense, as pointed out by Rachel Doerrie (ESPN). One area he doesn’t need help in is self-confidence. We saw that at the draft.
Minnesota Wild fourth round pick Aaron Kiviharju walked right up to GM Bill Guerin and told him that he got the steal of the draft 👀
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) July 1, 2024
Kid’s got confidence 💪
(via @mnwild) pic.twitter.com/MTj7ohoRlX
He showed flashes of skill and is clearly a top player among his peers, but he will need to develop his ability to defend more effectively and make quicker decisions to carve out an NHL career.
Rachel Doerrie, ESPN
Sebastian Soini, 18, is another defenseman the Wild selected in the fifth round. He didn’t register a point over two games played, but was a +1 in the tournament and avoided the penalty box.
Related: Minnesota Wild Blue Line May Be in Injury Trouble Yet Again
It looks like president of hockey operations Bill Guerin is well on his way to building a Minnesota Wild roster that, — as long as superstar Kirill Kaprizov sticks around and budding talents like Marco Rossi, Matt Boldy and Brock Faber continue to develop — is competetive now and sustainable for the future.
Youngsters like Zeev Buium, Aronn Kiviharju, Rasmus Kumpulainen and Sebastian Soini are a big part of what feels like a little bit of stability across the organization.
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