Joel Eriksson Ek deserves the world.
The Minnesota Wild’s best center finally got his rightful place on the top line, in between the offensively-gifted Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello, after hoards of hoards of online complaints throughout last season as he was pigeon-holed in a more defensive role with Marcus Foligno and Jordan Greenway to suffocate the opposition’s top line. Well they can both do that away from each other now.
His defensive game has been talked about enough (maybe) but his surge of counting stats has solidified his role on this team as just so dang good and well-deserving of the opportunity he’s being handed through the first three games.