In their current state of cap penalties, the Minnesota Wild have to play a certain way, or to their identity, to win. That identity is outworking all their opponents in every aspect of the game. They can’t let up at any point in the game. They can’t relax. The term used very often by Wild coaches and front office staff is “hard to play against.” They have to play that way because,
“Gentleman… you don’t have enough talent to win on talent alone.”
That’s been the thought about the Wild for a long time and most of their existence but we might be just a season away from adding $14M of “talent.” That doesn’t help them now, though, does it? Nope! Absolutely Not!
That’s okay. You have to play hard to win in the NHL. There are no easy games if you’re trying to win. (Ahem, tankers!) Another saying about talent is…
“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard!”
The Minnesota Wild missed the playoffs by 11 points but last season we saw a John Hynes-coached Wild team can win games and they were doing it with a depleted lineup due to injuries. When John Hynes took over as head coach last season (November 27th) to the end of the regular season (April 18th), the Minnesota Wild were the 13th-best team. Other ranks from that time span:
Goals For (15th), Goals Against (13th), Power Play % (9th), Penalty Kill % (22nd) & Face-Off Win % (23rd):
In those same stats through the first 19 games under Coach Dean Evason, they were the worst team by wins, 30th in points and:
Goals For (28th), Goals Against (28th), Power Play % (24th), Penalty Kill % (32nd or Last) & Face-Off Win % (29th)
Now compare the first 19 games with the last 63 games:
First 19 – Record: 5-10-4 (W-L-OTL) – 14 pts:
Goals For (28th), Goals Against (28th), Power Play % (24th), Penalty Kill % (32nd or Last) & Face-Off Win % (29th)
Final 63 games – Record: 34-23-6 (W-L-OTL) – 74 pts:
Goals For (15th), Goals Against (13th), Power Play % (9th), Penalty Kill % (22nd) & Face-Off Win % (23rd)
That’s a pretty big turnaround so the big question is, with a full offseason for John Hynes to implement his system, get players back healthy again & players improving in the offseason off of the frustration of a season gone bad, can they make it to The Dance and see what happens once they get there?
There’s still a lot of work to do but we think they are a playoff contender and we know GM Bill Guerin will help his team get better at the trade deadline to give them an extra push to make the dance as long and fun as possible.
SOLD at the Deadline
The Minnesota Wild sold a lot of Wild identity-type players at last season’s trade deadline. They traded F Brandon Duhaime (to COL for a ‘26 3rd-round pick), F Connor Dewar (to TOR for a ‘26 4th-round pick & F Dmitry Ovchinnikov (now a Free Agent)) & F Pat “It was” Maroon* (to BOS for F Luke Toporowski (on SOIR**) & a ‘26 6th-round pick).
*One of those players was injured… “It was Maroon” and he only played the last two regular season games for Boston so he wouldn’t have been a factor for the Wild had he not been traded.
**Season-Opening Injured Reserve (Lower-Body Injury)
The Minnesota Wild were 24-17-2 from John Hynes first game as head coach until the Wild sold at the Trade Deadline. That’s 50 points in 43 games which is 1.16 pts per game or 95 points in 82 games.
They were 10-6-4* after the Trade Deadline which is 23 points in 20 games (1.15 pts per game or 94 points in 82 games.
*This includes the Overtime game where the Wild pulled their goalie to try to get the 2nd point then allowed an Empty-Net Goal (ENG) so they forfeited the 1 point they would’ve received for an Overtime Loss.
Those trades made it difficult for the Wild down the stretch of last season because they weren’t as hard to play against. Talent is great and every team needs it but you also need those 3rd & 4th-line players because they can make it hard on other teams top lines (or “Talent” lines) to be effective.
New & Later
The injuries and deadline moves from the 2023-24 season dictated the offseason for the Minnesota Wild. They had to restore their identity by getting players to help them get back to being a team that makes the game difficult for every opponent. They also had to add depth & preferably veteran depth to help push everyone to improve their games and to fill in if/when injuries happen this season.
The first move of the offseason happened on May 31st when assistant coach & “one of us” Darby Hendrickson was relieved of his coaching duties. He was hired 21 days later by Nashville to be an assistant coach of former teammate Andrew Brunette. The Wild hired Jack Capuano to replace Darby.
The first player move of the offseason saw Minnesota Wild General Manager (GM) Bill Guerin made a hockey trade with New Jersey that was also a change-of-scenery trade when he sent F Adam Beckman to NJ for F Graeme Clarke. They’re both goal-scorers who haven’t received a real shot in the NHL.
8 days later, they made another trade when they sent F Vinni Lettieri with a ‘24 4th-round pick to the Boston Bruins for F Jakub Lauko & a ‘24 4th-round pick. This could turn out to be a great move in what was most likely a move Boston made to free up some money to sign G Jeremy Swayman.
The Big Move happened on July 1st when the Wild used the majority of their available cap space to sign F Yakov Trenin to a 4-year/$14M contract ($3.5M AAV). He’s a bottom-6 forward/center who was brought in because he Brings Clutter with physicality, the forecheck and good defense like a Joel Eriksson Ek with less offense but the offense could be because he’s not playing or never has played in a top-6 role. Some reporters thought the Wild were going to pursue a top-6 forward in the offseason but
The Wild also signed 8 players to two-way deals that have already played in the NHL but have yet to get a decent shot at staying there. These players are hungry for that chance:
Forwards:
Travis Boyd (former Gopher), Brendan Gaunce, Reese Johnson, Ben Jones & Devin Shore
Defence:
Joseph Cecconi & Cameron Crotty
Goalies:
Troy Grosenick (already out for the season with a torn ACL)
Travis Boyd spent most of his time in the NHL since the 2018-19 season (288 games) while playing just 6 games in the AHL during that time. He scored 77 points in 172 games for Arizona the last 3 seasons with 35 of the points being goals. He had 64 goals & 96 points in 148 games in his 4-year career with the Minnesota Gophers.
The age-range of these players is 25 to 31 years old and only one of them hasn’t made their NHL debut yet (Cecconi) so you know they will be working their butts off to be the first player called up when its needed.This will hopefully allow for a better season for the Wild’s minor league club, the Iowa Wild.
Marco Goal-O!!!
The Wild need several things to happen for them to compete for the Cup this season. They need a bunch of veteran players to return to form (Foligno, Hartman, Gaudreau, Johansson, Spurgeon, etc…) and they need a couple players to have breakout seasons and one of them should be Marco Rossi. He had 21 goals last season but we think this kid is just getting started. Did he hear the trade rumors? He for sure knows he’s going to be a Restricted Free Agent after this season but we think he’s just motivated to win. If you want proof of that, he decided it was best to skip the qualifiers for the World Championship and playing for his country Austria in Europe and come to Minnesota in mid-August to continue his training with the team.
He stayed in Minnesota last offseason and finished with 41 points, finished 6th in the Calder Trophy voting for Best Rookie and made the All-Rookie 1st team.
It also looks like he’ll start the season between Zuccarello & Kaprizov.
Take More Steps
A better season from D Brock Faber who probably should’ve won the Calder Trophy isn’t hard to envision because he’s already so good and he’s young so you expect him to keep learning what he can & can’t do.
Others who could surprise: Liam Ohgren after making the team out of camp, Marat Khusnutdinov after acclimating himself to the NHL in the last 16 games of last season (scored 3 of his 4 points in the last 6 games of the season) and most likely being told to take more chances offensively by the coaches &/or the GM.
And… we really like Jakub Lauko to have a breakout season because of how good he looked in the preseason. We know he’ll hit and be a part of that “hard to play against” mantra the Wild are trying to get back to but he also showed some offensive flair that maybe he wasn’t able to show as a Boston Bruin.
To be a Special Team, your Special Teams have to be… uhh… Special
The Wild had an outstanding Power Play last season and we expect that to continue if not become even better this season. The Penalty Kill was not good and was a major contribution that led to “Killing” their chances of making the playoffs. That will have to get fixed so the Wild hired Jack Capuano as an assistant coach and he’ll help run the Penalty Kill with Pat Dwyer. This is also something new forward Yakov Trenin specializes in so he will help too.
It’s pretty difficult to change your system once the season started and the Wild had the 10th best penalty kill during the 2022-23 season but ended up with the 3rd worst PK last season so they’ve worked on it and hope to make it a big part of their success this season. Oh, the Captian D Jared Spurgeon being back healthy will also help the kill.
3-Headed Goalie?
The Minnesota Wild will start the season with 3 goalies on the roster. Filip Gustavsson & Marc-Andre Fleury will return but they’ll be joined by young prospect & who the Wild believe is their goalie of the future, Jesper Wallstedt (\YEHS-puhr WAHL-steht\).
Jesper has been kicking at the NHL can for a couple of seasons and made his NHL
debut last season when they started him against Dallas in early January and the Stars scored 7 on him. He returned in April for two starts, won them both and earned his 1st NHL Shutout at Chicago on April 7th.
It will be interesting to see how the Minnesota Wild do this because there will be times when one goalie could get on a roll and get a string of consecutive starts so the other two will just be ready. There will also be times when the schedule doesn’t work well for 3 goalies. Jesper Wallstedt is exempt from waivers so he can be sent down and recalled from Iowa without the Wild risking losing him.
The major reason for this is the Minnesota Wild feel Jesper has shown he’s ready to get more NHL starts and they want to find out what they have in him. He also gets to learn from a future Hall of Fame goaltender in Marc-Andre Fleury.
We’ll see how it goes. The schedule starts with 2 home games and then a 7-game road trip so the Wild have already sent Wallstedt down to Iowa and recalled D Daemon Hunt.
The Iowa Wild start their season on Saturday & the Wild will be playing their 2nd game so this allows Jesper to start the game in Iowa to get some playing time.
Time to Get WILD!!!
A lot of things have to go right for the Minnesota Wild to make the playoffs and make a run but they had a strong camp and the players were disappointed with last season and want this season to be different.
Will it happen? There is no way to know until we…
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Drop the ClutterPuck
on the 2024-25 NHL Season!
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