Before the first draft in Wild franchise history, new general manager Doug Risebrough and his team of scouts scoured a list of first-round prospects.

As an expansion team, they wanted to draft a pure goal scorer, the kind that could change the complexion of a franchise and the kind, they felt, that could make a first-year team exciting even if it featured a number of less-skilled players. Related Articles Marcus Johansson, a winger by trade, is confident he can play center for Wild

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The problem? There were two such players, they decided, and they were drafting either No. 3 or No. 4 overall.

It all came down to a coin flip on national television between the Wild and their sister expansion franchise, the Columbus Blue Jackets. Winner of the coin flip would pick No. 3 in the 2000 entry draft, loser would pick No. 4 but have the first pick in the expansion draft.

Bill Daly, now the league’s deputy commissioner, flipped the coin, which featured a Wild logo on one side and a Blue Jackets logo on the other. The coin landed on a table between Risebrough and Columbus’ front office, then bounced high off the table and fell between Risebrough’s feet.

He looked down and saw his franchise’s logo.

He had the third pick.

Then Daly interrupted. The flip didn’t count because the coin didn’t stay on the table. They had to reflip.

“And I keep thinking, ‘What are the chances this second coin toss is going to come up Wild again?’ ” Risebrough said last week. “Sure enough, second coin toss goes up, hits the table, logo facing up is the Wild’s.”

The Wild then had to wait.

The New York Islanders chose goalie Rick DiPietro with the first pick, guaranteeing the Wild one of the two scorers the Wild had identified, Dany Heatley or Marian Gaborik. After months of debate, the Wild decided they wanted Gaborik, largely because he was the better skater.

“In Minnesota, where they understand hockey, we wanted somebody that could skate, somebody that could bring excitement just by getting up the ice faster,” Risebrough said. “Because Minnesotans understand the game. They grow up on big ponds with the open ice. If we had gotten a goal scorer that could hardly move, people wouldn’t have been inspired.

“Especially because it was going to take time to surround this player with enough players to score. But if he could break lose and get up the ice, people could see promise. And if the guy was just waddling up the ice – even though he was a good goal-scorer – I don’t think a lot of people were going to see the same confidence there.”

As the Wild hoped, the Atlanta Thrashers selected Heatley with the No. 2 pick and the Wild chose Gaborik at No. 3.

Gaborik became the Wild’s franchise leader in goals, his 219 in 502 games still 65 more goals than Mikko Koivu, second on the franchise’s all-time list. Ironically, Risebrough’s replacement, Chuck Fletcher, traded for Heatley in 2011 – admittedly after Heatley’s prime. Heatley finished with 47 goals in 194 games with the Wild.

Gaborik, meanwhile, was injured for most of his final season with the Wild in 2008-09 and left as an unrestricted free agent after that season. He played parts of four seasons with the New York Rangers — the franchise Risebrough now works for as a scout — before being traded to Los Angeles, where he helped the Kings win a Stanley Cup in 2014.

Risebrough predicts more of the league’s elite goal-scorers will follow that path, ultimately leaving the team that drafted them when they become unrestricted free agents.

This summer, Steven Stamkos, a 26-year-old who has scored 297 career goals, is slated to hit free agency.

“I think it’s the common way now,” Risebrough said. “Ultimately, if you don’t find the room to surround players with that amount of money — which requires cap space — the player can say, ‘You’ve paid me, but there has to be more here.’ It really has to be architected well. Nobody in hockey thinks that long-term anymore. Everybody is kind of fighting their day-to-day needs and issues and they’re not thinking that far down the road.

“And the other thing, too, is the players, I think, reach that choice very early. If you take those players and put them into your lineup as 18-year-olds, they’re (unrestricted) free (agents) by 26 years old. So it’s not like they’ve built up a whole lifestyle, where they have kids and have established their life there. … The root of staying longer isn’t the tug of a lifestyle that maybe it once was. It’s not a slap on the players. It’s just the nature of the game right now.”