When the Minnesota Wild arrived ahead of training camp, head coach John Hynes emphasized that the team start the season off on the right foot. The first two months last season the Wild battled terribly with inconsistency. Because of that, they had to play catchup the entire season, which eventually led to them missing the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Despite being bitten by the injury bug early in the season, the Wild have started off great, going 3-0-2 after Saturday night’s 3-1 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets.
No Excuses
Despite only playing five games thus far, the following players have missed time due to injuries: Jared Spurgeon (three games), Joel Eriksson Ek (two games), Marcus Johansson (one game), and Ryan Hartman (missed Saturday’s game). Those four are important players to the team’s overall success, but they’ve battled through it.
Related: Minnesota Wild Need a Strong Start to 2024-25
Other players like Liam Ohgren, Declan Chisolm and Marat Khusnutdinov have stepped up when asked to do so in their absence. Those three players will play a big part in the future and it bodes well for the team’s overall success.
Other depth players for the Wild have been okay and for the success to continue they will need to be better as the season goes along.
Getting Dominant Performances
I’ve said it before and I will say it again, Kirill Kaprizov should be a candidate for the Hart Trophy for the MVP of the NHL. Since he plays in Minnesota and not New York or Tampa Bay he gets overlooked and disrespected, as seen by the NHL Network rating him the 25th-best player before the season.
Without Kaprizov, who knows where the Wild would be this season? He’s averaging 22:35 of ice time per game, which would be a new career high and has registered three multi-point games so far this season. In five games, he has two goals, six assists and eight points; but it’s his overall game as he’s becoming a better two-way player.
Despite only being his second year, Minnesota native Brock Faber is currently fourth among ice time in the entire NHL averaging 26:06 per game. He’s been dominant in every situation, top-line powerplay unit and plays the most minutes on the penalty kill. His hockey IQ and hockey sense are off the charts. Like Kaprizov, he’s becoming one of the best players in all of hockey at his position. That’s why the Wild extended him after one full season giving him eight years at $8.5 million per season. “He’s shown that he’s mature enough to handle it. He’s shown that he’s going to keep getting better,” said Minnesota Wild general manager Bill Guerin after the extension. “Yeah, it’s worth the risk.”
One can argue that Kaprizov and Faber will only get better as time goes on; which is scary for the other 31 teams in the NHL.
Sticking With the Hot Hand
To start this season it sounded like it was going to be a three-man rotation when it came to the team’s goaltending. But with the early injuries, Jesper Wallstedt was sent down to Iowa of the American Hockey League.
The reason for the proposed rotation was the previous season’s performance in net. One night Marc-Andre Fleury would start, the next night it would be Filip Gustavsson, mainly because neither guy took charge when given the chance. The same cannot be said this season so far; Gustavsson is playing the best he’s ever played. The Sweden native is 3-0-1 with a 1.49 goals-against average and a .950 save percentage and hasn’t allowed one bad goal in the four games he has played. He also hasn’t allowed more than two goals per start and scored a powerplay goal himself Tuesday (Oct. 15) in St. Louis.
The fact that Hynes is riding the hot hand is surprising but good for the outlook of the team. One would suspect it will remain Gustavsson’s net for a while; the team plays next Tuesday in Florida, Thursday in Tampa Bay and Saturday in Philadelphia.
The Wild’s road trip is only going to get tougher. The team can only hope the specialty teams keep improving and that the best players’ performance continues as they hope to get healthier sooner rather than later.
