Michael Russo's Sunday Insider: On getting better faster

In recent games, the Wild has faced off with Pittsburgh, Chicago and Los Angeles -- three teams in various stages of development but all stacked with young, star-studded talent.

This is what the Wild wants to become. It'll be a tedious task, however, because the Wild doesn't have the luxury -- so to speak -- of following their blueprint.

"All three of those teams have been built through the draft with some great young talent," Wild first-year GM Chuck Fletcher said. "The flip side of that: There were some tough years along the way to acquire those top picks."

It's too risky to assume already-patient Wild fans are willing to tolerate two or three years of painful losing to get blue-chip draft picks. Plus, the Wild wants to win now.

So Fletcher hopes to figure out creative ways to infuse talent into the organization without top-five picks. His multipronged plan starts with quality drafting in every round, the signing of college free agents -- a rarity in Wildland -- and astute trading.

He went out and got 22-year-old Guillaume Latendresse, a 2005 second-round pick from Montreal who looks as if he can become the first prototypical power forward in Wild history.

"We think we have some solid young players here already, players like [Mikko] Koivu, Latendresse, Cal Clutterbuck, [Pierre-Marc] Bouchard, [Nick] Schultz, [Brent] Burns, [Josh] Harding, [James] Sheppard," Fletcher said. "But our goal and really our responsibility is to find more players."

The Blackhawks acquired Patrick Sharp and Kris Versteeg for virtually nothing. They hit on first- and second-round picks Brent Seabrook, Duncan Keith and Cam Barker. But they also discovered diamonds in the rough in Niklas Hjalmarsson (108th overall, 2005), Troy Brouwer (214th, 2004) and Dustin Byfuglien (245th, 2003).

That's something the Wild hasn't done a lot. In the history of the organization, the only post-second-round picks to play more than 56 games with the club are 2006 third-rounder Clutterbuck, 2001 third-round pick Stephane Veilleux, 2001 seventh-round pick Derek Boogaard and 2000 eighth-round pick Lubomir Sekeras.

"You want the high draft picks, but if you have a good scouting staff, which you hope you do, you can put in some pretty good players later in the draft," said Rick Dudley, the associate GM in Atlanta who helped build the Blackhawks as assistant GM. "Drafting is paramount. You can't be ultimately successful, you can't win the big prize anymore in the world of the [salary] cap without not only making shrewd picks but keeping them.

"There was a long time where people traded their soul to win in the immediate, and they still do to some degree, but I think it's a horrible mistake. You can't buy a team anymore, so you have to develop through the draft and other creative ways."

That's what Fletcher's going to try to do because the Wild's not up to snuff from a prospect level compared to other organizations. There are some promising youngsters, especially on the blue line with Marco Scandella, Tyler Cuma and Nick Leddy and forwards Cody Almond and Erik Haula.