The Minnesota Wild embark on season 23 tonight. They have a lot of the same players and leaders as they’ve had the last two seasons. They’ve made some changes and brought in some new players while others have left the organization for one reason or another. Every year…
“Expectations get higher.
Each and every year we grow a little bit, we come together a little bit, we make steps and because of that expectations get higher. It’s no different this year. Our expectation is to win the Stanley Cup,” the GM who has won four Stanley Cups as a player and executive added.
“That’s it. That’s our expectation. I don’t care what outside noise says. I don’t care what social media says. I don’t care what anybody says. We have the ability to win the Stanley Cup.
This is a really good group. You guys have worked so hard to build something really special. We can get there. It starts today.”
Minnesota Wild General Manager Bill Guerin
Here to stay. #mnwild pic.twitter.com/7Xn6tdQp20— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) October 12, 2023
The Twitter link above is supposed to show a video for the 2023-24 Minnesota Wild but it’s not coming up with the video attached so go here to see the 2023-24 Minnesota Wild Opening Night Hype Video. It’s the source for the Bill Guerin Quote above:
2023-24 Minnesota Wild Opening Night Hype Video
The Wild have always prioritized winning. They believe their fans deserve that. Every team should try to win games, not the first pick in the draft but hey, the league allows that to happen when they could probably stop it but that’s a topic for another time.
The Minnesota Wild have lost in the first round the last two seasons because of the mental side of the game. In 2022, the St. Louis Blues experience and their adjustments worked while the Wild didn’t adjust as much but it was the mental side of having the confidence to play their game and keep pushing back against the Blues. They started hanging their heads and the frustration of how the games were going after they had a 2-1 lead in the series affected their game and they lost 3 straight. Season Over!
Fast forward to 2023 and it was more of the same. They had a 2-1 series lead and they were playing a very physical game against Dallas. The officials were making terrible calls and that took the Wild off their game because they thought they had to change the way they played and not take as many penalties since Dallas’ power play was killing them. 3 straight losses. Season Over!
That’s not necessarily the same mental issue. One was the opponent and the other was the officials but the main problem was not having confidence in their game and the most frustrating thing about it is we didn’t see that in the regular season.
The playoffs are more difficult because you’re facing the same team for possibly 7 games and adjustments are made during the games and the series by the best coaches in the world. That’s why it’s so hard to win the Stanley Cup. You have to beat 4 teams 4 times in 2 months and each round is harder than the last.
The Wild have reached the 3rd round once in their 22-year existence since being an expansion team in the year 2000. Times have changed since then. The league now wants their expansion teams to have success right away so they changed the rules to make it easier to win right away and poof, 6 years later, here is your Stanley Cup!
The Wild can’t do anything about that so they’ll keep battling to get over the round 1 postseason hump and we’re here to tell you how they can still make it happen.
Who’s New? Who said, “See You”?
There wasn’t a lot of change to the Wild’s roster from last year as a whole but if you go by the Opening Night rosters, it’s a different story. The main changes for completely new players to the Wild? “It was Maroon.” Only F Pat Maroon was added when he was acquired with a prospect for a 2024 7th-round draft pick from Tampa Bay who also retained 20% of Maroon’s contract ($200K.) He replaced F Ryan Reaves (who signed with Toronto) to be the Wild’s new tough, veteran-presence, culture guy and he should help more than Reaves in our opinion because he should bring more offense while still being able to give his teammates confidence to battle as hard as they can on the ice.
The Wild have a couple of players who were on the team last season but weren’t there on Opening Night in F Marcus Johansson & D Brock Faber. Johansson was great in his second stint as a member of the Wild. He had 18 points on 6 goals and 12 assists in 2o games playing beside F Matt Boldy. D Brock Faber brought an immediate defensive upgrade to the team and should only get better in his first full season as a pro.
Unfortunately, bringing in new players means players left as well. D Matt Dumba ended his 10-year run with the Wild when he signed for 1-year with the Arizona Coyotes. F Sam Steel signed with Dallas. D John Klingberg, like the aforementioned F Ryan Reaves, also signed with Toronto. F Oskar Sundqvist signed with St. Louis. F Tyson Jost signed an extension with Buffalo.
The Wild also added Fs Juhjar Khaira, Vinni Lettieri & Jacob Lucchini to 2-way contracts.
How Do They Get Over the 1st-Round Hump?
This Minnesota Wild team has figured out the regular season. They’ve had good & bad starts and bad stretches the last two seasons but always recovered and were playing very good hockey when the postseason arrived.
Will this season be different and the bad stretches will be fewer and further between the good stretches? Consistency is the sign of a great team and this team should be ready to become that kind of team. They have everything they need to do it.
The defense is always solid and we know the goaltending should be one of the best tandems in the league with Filip Gustavsson continuing his rock-solid play from last season while Marc-Andre Fleury will for sure want to be as good as possible in the final year of his contract and what could end up being the final season of his career.
The offense should be able to get back to what they were in 2021-22 when they were 5th in the league in goals for. Marcus Foligno & Ryan Hartman can return to their form. Freddy “The Stick” Gaudreau can keep developing his offense after 19 goals last season. Matt Boldy showed the ability to score in bunches with new linemate Marcus Johansson. F Joel Eriksson-Ek gets better every year. Patty Maroon and Two Deweys might be a surprising source of offense too. Both Dewar & Duhaime have shown scoring ability and they both have a ton of speed.
They named F Kirill Kaprizov the new Alternate Captain (or Kaptain) and you know he’s more motivated than ever to help his team make a deep playoff run.
‘His engine is what drives us’
Then we have…
Marco Goal-O!
Young prospect F Marco Rossi could be a huge part of this team taking that next step because he has so much potential to be great. It’s taken a while but he’s been through a lot with the myocarditis scare during the Covid-19 pandemic then having to return to hockey and figure out professional hockey to then figuring out how to deal with struggling at the NHL level. This summer, he stayed in Minnesota over the summer and worked with Head Strength and Conditioning Coach Matt Harder and Skills Coach Andy Ness. He put on 15 pounds and worked on a new skating stride.
“We’ve seen some great stuff already from him and how he’s conducted himself. Probably more than the physical end of it is his maturity level. He’s been more vocal. He’s been more involved. He’s been kind of more of a presence on and off the ice. So, yeah we’re just hoping that continues to progress.”
Minnesota Wild Head Coach Dean Evason from the Minnesota Wild Season Preview
Marco Rossi had 51 points (16 goals, 35 assists) in 53 games with the Iowa Wild last season and he started to shoot the puck more as the season went on but the big thing was the confidence he started to play with. He was named the Player of the Week for the week ending on March 19th:
But maybe the biggest thing that could help the Wild become an Elite team in the NHL is…
The Power Play & the PK!
The Wild hired new assistant coach Jason King over the summer after being an assistant coach in Vancouver for the past 3 years. “He ran a Canucks power play the past two that averaged 23.1 percent (ninth-best in the NHL). The Wild were 16th in the league over the same stretch (21.0 percent) and have struggled at the man advantage in the playoffs (17.4 percent over the past two postseasons).”*
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In the preseason, the Wild’s power play was showing a shoot-first mentality and a shoot-quick-and-often mentality. Here’s what The Athletic had for the Power Play Units back in late September:
“The No. 1 unit looks familiar because it’s the same one that was solid for much of the 2022-23 regular season until Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek were injured and Calen Addison wound up a press-box fixture. Kaprizov, Eriksson Ek, Mats Zuccarello, Matt Boldy and Addison were reunited while the No. 2 unit was Marco Rossi centering Marcus Johansson, Ryan Hartman, Freddy Gaudreau and Jared Spurgeon.
Marcus Foligno, a No. 2 unit mainstay last season, Pat Maroon and Alex Goligoski also saw reps so they get used to some of the new systematic stuff being installed by King, who coached a top-10 power play during his three years in Vancouver.”
The Penalty Kill (PK) needs to be better at getting clears and taking away passing lanes. It’s easier said than done but they know what they need to do and they know they need to be better.
Deep in the Wild
Another thing the Wild still has is a lot of depth. They have Fs Sammy Walker, Nic Petan, Vinni Lettieri, Adam Beckman, Jacob Lucchin, Steven Fogarty and Defensemen Dakota Mermis, Carson Lambos, Ryan O’Rourke, Daemon Hunt & Simon Johansson. They also have a veteran goalie in Zane McIntyre and a stud prospect in Jesper Wallstedt, too.
One of those forwards would’ve likely made the team if the salary cap had gone up more than just $1M. Of course, there’s that little elephant in the Cap Room, the $14,743,588 dead cap from the Ryan Suter & Zach Parise buyouts. Are we sure there isn’t another 99 cents on both of those too? That’d be another $1.98 added on!
More from Billy G before we leave…
“I’m just going to leave you with this. A lot of guys can play in the National Hockey League. Anybody that’s in training camp right now, we can take you and put you in the NHL and you’ll do fine. You can play. You can probably play for a long time.
What we’re looking for are guys that can help us win. It’s different. Just playing isn’t enough. We want guys that are going to help the Minnesota Wild win a Stanley Cup.
So, when you get out there, make a difference. Make an impression. Make something happen. Play a role that you’re not used to playing. Do something that brings you out of your comfort zone. And show us that you are the player that will help us win. Because that’s what we need, that’s what we want, and that’s what we’re going for.”
It’s up to them to Bring the Wildest Clutter!
They know what they need to do. They just need to do it. They also know their general manager is behind them 100% and if they’re in a position to make a run, he’ll do whatever he can to give them some more firepower in the postseason. The Minnesota Twins just broke an 18-year & 21-year streak and a lot of the Wild players watched that happen in the city across the river so now it’s their turn!
The goal is to make the playoffs and see what happens but they’d for sure rather get a higher seed so they have home-ice advantage.
It’s going to be a fun, CLUTTER-FILLED season! We hope you follow along at ClutterPuck.com! Bring the Clutter on us if we aren’t Bringing enough Clutter!
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