Draft Day, 2018 -- Dallas, Texas.
With the 28th pick, Minnesota selects the German teenager Dominik Bokk. From the town of Schweinfurt (named for being a convenient crossing for pigs over the Main in the 8th century,) Bokk made the Wild out of his first training camp, making 58 appearances in 2018-19 in a depth role. He scored his first goal for the Wild at the end of November, back in Dallas.

2019 -- Des Moines, Iowa.
Newly farm eligible and in need of seasoning, 'DomBokk' spent most of the next two seasons in the AHL as a top contributor with Iowa -- Des Moines providing the sort of anodyne cream-of-wheat-trapped-in-amber vibe that lessened the young winger's culture shock.

April 18th, 2024 -- The City of Angels.
Game 4 of Minnesota's first round series against the Los Angeles Kings. Bokk's scored a pair of goals in this, his and most of the team's first taste of playoff hockey in EHEC. With the Wild up 3-2 en route to sending the series to 3-1, LA's Riley Tufte takes it upon himself to burrow through DomBokk's chest, stick first. Tufte is removed from the game and suspended 25 games, Bokk survives and is expected to miss 7 months at minimum. Inspired in no small part by their teammate's gruesome, Chamber-from-Generation-X-esque injury and courage, the Wild go on a fairly improbable run to the Western Conference finals.

Late June, 2024 -- St-Paul, Minnesota.
Bokk agrees to a second 3-year extension with the Wild, at 2,500,000 a season. After six years with an organization and a group of teammates that's finally broken through to relative competitiveness, the young forward and his agent see no reason not to try for nine. Bokk's played 352 games with the Wild and his rehab is progressing nicely, he should be available by the end of October. He's a streaky scorer, but he makes the best of his 3rd or 4th line minutes. The deal is not remarked among widely, but it is considered an unusual one -- Bokk's not a star, not a prospect and not cheap, at 2.5 million.

EHEC's General Managers have largely embraced an abundance mindset when it comes to depth players -- veterans churn around the league every summer on 1 or 2 year deals just above the league minimum. The league's financial growth has stagnated, it's alleged, though advertising revenues continue to crawl upward and the largest capital expenditures required of team owners and stockholders are largely offset by generous municipal grants, leases and loans. Regardless of margins and gross revenue, the salary cap has definitely stagnated, the league office having officially capped the cap and seeing no particular internal push to raise it.

Minnesota's current management was indeed at the heart of the unsuccessful Revolutionary Orange Trust coup of 2015 that momentarily proclaimed the People's Republic of Florida, and that current manager did eventually flee into the Florida mangroves and did eventually leave the EHEC league office little choice but to replace him. The point is, upon reappearance we did assume, particularly in a state like Minnesota built on the spirit of a Midwestern sort of mutualism, maybe this is a different sort of executive. Bokk's contract looked to reaffirm that.

October 18th, 2024 -- New York, New York.
Then again, perhaps not. The cap is the cap is the cap, and with Minnesota having done the first half of the work -- bringing in a handful of cheap veterans, signing stars to extensions -- the reaping was long past due and penalties from the league office began to loom. For some reason, no one in Minneapolis was particularly sad to see Dillon Dub?? swapped for Jared McCann. But more sacrifices were needed.

Dominik Bokk, with the ink on his extension still moist and smudgeable, was now, as some anonymous GMs could be quoted -- 'a burden' and 'a woof contract.'

The Wild ended up sending a fair amount of sweeteners to New York along with their homegrown German winger, including a late 1st rounder, Yegor Surin, who we hope does not encounter this same cynical, inhumane, bottom-line business in his professional career.