We’re less than one week away from the regular season, and the Minnesota Wild are looking good thus far. Much of that credit goes to head coach John Hynes as he’s been demanding intensity since day one of training camp. He wants a much better start to the season, unlike last season where they didn’t recover from a slow start. The Wild have a gruelling start to the regular season. The first two games are at home, and then the team goes on a season-high seven-game road trip spanning more than 19 days.
Big Guns Starting Off Hot
The Wild’s three big offensive stars have played in two preseason games each and they’re off to an incredible start. Joel Eriksson Ek, Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello played Friday versus the Winnipeg Jets and Tuesday against the Chicago Blackhawks. The three have a combined seven goals and 17 points and the team has scored 15 goals in those two games. Most impressively is how the goals are being scored; five on five (nine goals), power play (four goals), and shorthanded (two goals).
New Addition Turning Heads
The team has a new-look fourth line. It’s no longer just muckers and grinders; it’s been changed with a refreshing speed, skill, and a little grit. Marat Khusnutdinov, Jakub Lauko and Frédérick Gaudreau have had very solid starts to the preseason, scoring five goals thus far. Lauko specifically has been impressive cementing his spot as a regular forward. The former Boston Bruin scored twice in 60 games last season but has three goals in four preseason games.
Related: Wild’s Offensive Outburst Leads to Preseason Win Over Blackhawks
Lauko is one of those players you like playing with but hate playing against. The Wild took notice of him last season when the two teams played each other. A few big hits by Lauko led to a couple of scraps with former Wild Brandon Duhaime and Connor Dewar. When Boston called to see if the Wild would be interested in Lauko, they said yes and traded Vinni Lettieri back to Boston.
Wild Owner Determined To Keep Kaprizov
Tuesday night, Wild owner/governor Craig Leipold met with the media at the Xcel Energy Center and said he has a couple of top priorities on his agenda.
First things first, he wants to contend for the playoffs again, and knows what needs to be done. “Get off to a good start. Good goaltending. Good power play. Good penalty kill. It’s a simple formula,” said Leipold.
The 2024-25 season is the final season of the big pill they have to swallow in the Ryan Suter and Zach Parise buyouts. This season it will cost them $14.7 million, in 2025-26 it’s a combined $1.66 million cap hit. For the next offseason, the Wild have a projected $20 million in cap space. Leipold only wants to improve the team and make them a Stanley Cup contender.
“Next July 1 is going to be like Christmas. We’re going to have money available. We’re going to have the resources available to do what we need to do to get back to Wild hockey,” said Leipold.
The main reason why the owner is more determined than ever to win now is that he knows that the team’s best player in franchise history, Kaprizov, will be an unrestricted free agent after the 2025-26 season. Everyone has heard the rumors about him being interested in Chicago.
“So what does he want? He wants to win. So we have to prove to not only to him, but to other UFAs that we also want to win. And we’re used to winning. This is the State of Hockey, and we’re going to get back to the winning ways,” said Leopold. “I will tell you nobody will offer more money than us, or longer. So all we have to do is prove to him that we want to win.”
Only time will tell how things will turn out, but everyone within the organization knows another season of missing the playoffs is not an option.
