2023-24 NHL team preview: Minnesota Wild

Credit: Kirill Kaprizov (© Matt Blewett-USA TODAY Sports)

LAST SEASON

The Minnesota Wild activated a detonator when they bought out Zach Parise and Ryan Suter in summer 2021. They badly needed to make a deep playoff run in 2021-22 before the penalties from those buyouts started to put the squeeze on their salary-cap space. After they fell short in the 2022 postseason, the pain began, with the combined buyout cap hits on the ensuing season’s payroll amounting to almost $13 million. General manager Bill Guerin traded his team’s second-leading scorer, Kevin Fiala, to the Los Angeles Kings for a futures-oriented package rather than extending Fiala’s contract. The Wild didn’t have the financial flexibility to replace Fiala with any meaningful roster upgrades heading into last season. The best they could do was tread water, dropping from 113 to 103 points and finishing third in the Central Division. They scored a coup with their offseason trade for Filip Gustavsson, who delivered one of the best seasons of any goalie in the NHL, but they regressed from a top-five offense in 2021-22 to the 23^rd-best offense in 2022-23.

With a relatively punchless attack aside from superstar Kirill Kaprizov and rising sniper Matt Boldy, the Wild fell in the opening round of the playoffs for the seventh time in the past eight years, booed off the ice by their home fans after bowing out to the Dallas Stars in six games. This season, the cap penalties for the Parise and Suter buyouts get even worse, ballooning to $14.74 million, leaving Minnesota once again unable to make significant upgrades. To stay afloat in the Central, they’ll need major improvements from within.

KEY ADDITIONS & DEPARTURES

Additions

Pat Maroon, LW
Vinni Lettieri, C

Departures

Matt Dumba, D (Ari)
Gustav Nyquist, LW (Nsh)
Oskar Sundqvist, C (Stl)
Sam Steel, C (Dal)
Ryan Reaves, RW (Tor)
John Klingberg, D (Tor)

OFFENSE

The Wild were a treat to watch the season before last, when Kaprizov smashed the franchise records for goals (47), assists (61) and points (106), forging magical chemistry with Ryan Hartman and Mats Zuccarello on the top line. Fiala had a career-best 85 points and developed a rapport with then-rookie Boldy that season, too. The Wild’s power play was subpar, but they scored the fifth-most goals in the league at even strength.

It all evaporated last season starting with the Fiala trade. Kaprizov and Boldy were the lone Minnesota players to eclipse 23 goals. Kaprizov continued to produce at an all-world level but missed 15 games due to injury, exposing the team’s lack of scoring depth. Whereas the Wild graded out solidly above average in chance generation at 5-on-5 in 2021-22, they rated near the bottom of the league last season – the lowest of any team qualifying for the Stanley Cup playoffs. With the fourth-worst shooting percentage at 5-on-5, they showed a glaring inability to finish.

Can we expect that to change in 2023-24 with a lineup that looks so unchanged? Kaprizov remains a bona fide superstar at the peak of his powers. Boldy can be counted on to improve on his 31-goal sophomore showing considering he was absolutely snakebitten early and erupted for 15 goals in his final 19 games. But can Minnesota find the secondary scoring behind them? Zuccarello has found a groove as a playmaker on Kaprizov’s line, while No. 2 center Joel Eriksson Ek is a safe bet for 20 goals and a strong power-play presence. The dropoff behind that quartet is steep, however, especially after Hartman’s production regressed so badly last season. He remains shoehorned into the top center gig, but Minnesota desperately needs a true No. 1 to drive the play up the middle and make others around him better. It remains to be seen if one of their prospects can become that player. More on that later.

While they wait for a young forward to emerge, the Wild will keep relying on captain Jared Spurgeon as an underrated source of offense from the blueline. Over the past eight seasons, his 84 goals rank 13^th among all NHL defensemen.

DEFENSE

The Wild lost their scoring mojo last season but remained north of 100 points because goal prevention continued to be a major team strength. Only five teams allowed fewer goals per game, and the Wild iced a top-10 penalty kill. They skewed a bit more bend-but-don’t-break than normal in terms of allowing shots on goal, but for the umpteenth season in a row, they ranked among the league’s best teams at limiting scoring chances and high-danger chances at 5-on-5.

With so many of their personnel returning, we can expect the Wild to remain solidly above average defensively. Their top pair of Jacob Middleton and Spurgeon remains intact. Among 113 duos that logged at least 300 minutes together at 5-on-5 last season, they held the 14^th-lowest expected goals against per 60 – right behind Devon Toews and Cale Makar. With Matt Dumba off to the Arizona Coyotes, the right side on the second pair with Jonas Brodin opens up. Is Brock Faber ready to assume that role? The Wild’s top blueline prospect, acquired in the Fiala trade, turned pro late last season after his illustrious college career with the University of Minnesota. His all-around skill set and skating suit him well to a long-term shutdown role. He should get every opportunity to become a top-four fixture this season. The truth is the Wild need him to. The depth chart below him, which includes veterans Jon Merrill and Alex Goligoski and offense-only Calen Addison, thins out in a hurry.

At least the D-corps can count on help up front. Between the likes of Eriksson Ek, Frederick Gaudreau and Marcus Foligno, the Wild don’t hurt for defensively conscientious forwards.

GOALTENDING

Guerin acquired Gustavsson in a 2022 offseason trade that sent the disgruntled Cam Talbot to the Ottawa Senators. The expectation was for Gustavsson, a mid-pedigree prospect who’d looked respectable in limited NHL duty, to slot in as a decent backup to starter Marc-Andre Fleury while both men kept the seat warm for Jesper Wallstedt, arguably the best puck-stopping prospect in the world. Even the most optimistic prognosticator couldn’t have envisioned Gustavsson’s marvellous showing. His 2.10 goals-against average, .931 save percentage and 0.74 5-on-5 goals saved above average per 60 all ranked second in the league behind Vezina Trophy winner Linus Ullmark. Had Gustavsson appeared in more than 39 games, he surely would’ve been a finalist for the award. He slowly transitioned from backup to Fleury’s platoon partner and, by the postseason, the Wild’s 1A, starting five of their six games.

Gustavsson just inked a three-year extension at a $3.75 million AAV. Fleury enters the final season of his contract. Presumably, the Wild will roll with an exciting Gustavsson-Wallstedt tandem next season. In the present, Gustavsson-Fleury is a strong duo. Even if Gustavsson is only 80 percent as good as he was a year ago, future Hall of Famer Fleury is darned good insurance as the 1B.

COACHING

The Wild have played consistently excellent regular-season hockey since Dean Evason took the reins from Bruce Boudreau midway through the 2019-20 campaign. Among bench bosses with at least 200 games coached, his .662 career points percentage ranks third in NHL history. He’s a players’ coach who gives his troops freedom to share their voices and take leadership roles. He is, however, still seeking his first playoff series win, sitting at 0-4 with an 8-15 record in postseason games. Does that make Evason’s seat hot? It’s hard to place blame on him for the team plateauing when its cap conundrum has resulted in losing key contributors and not replacing them with high-impact players. Evason has fared pretty well with the hands he’s been dealt.

ROOKIES

Faber is the most important Wild rookie in that he is most likely to play a major role in 2023-24. But the Wild sure hope Marco Rossi takes strides to becoming their No. 1 center of the future. Heck, they’d settle for No. 3 center of the present. The ninth-overall pick of the 2021 NHL Draft has flashed his high ceiling as a potential franchise player during each AHL demotion but simply has not translated that performance into production or confidence at the NHL level. It’s too early to raise fears of Rossi being a Quad-A player given he’s still just 21, but he needs to at least stick as a full-time NHL player this season. If he can’t, it’ll be time to worry.

The Wild do have more reinforcements on the way with the likes of Liam Ohgren, Danila Yurov and others projecting to make splashes as scoring forwards someday, but none is expected to contribute this season. It’s all on Rossi. If anything happens to Fleury or Gustavsson, of course, we should see Wallstedt make his highly anticipated NHL debut between the pipes, but another season in the AHL would be preferable. At 20, he’s a baby in goalie years.

BURNING QUESTIONS

1. Who steps up as a secondary scorer? If Rossi doesn’t make the leap, can Minnesota count on a bounceback from Hartman after he tumbled to 15 goals last season? Another route to scoring gains would be if Boldy jumps from a 30-goal guy to a 40-goal guy. He has the raw scoring ability and first-round pedigree to do it.

2. Is Filip Gustavsson really this good? He truly dominated the league last season. Was it one big heater or can we expect him to be a perennial all-star going forward?

3. Will this team ever win a playoff series? The Wild last won a series in 2014-15 and haven’t reached the third round of the postseason since 2002-03. They are the poster children for the NHL’s mediocre murky middle, never good enough to win a championship nor bad enough to load up on superstar-grade prospects with high picks at the draft. With a roster so unchanged year over year, what reason do we have to expect anything but the same?

PREDICTION

“We know who they are at this point” works as a sports cliché but really applies to a roster as stagnant as Minnesota’s. This team should continue to play solid defense and get excellent goaltending, but it appears the Wild will again struggle to score given their lack of depth. They look like a lower-seed playoff team again – at best – unless Faber and Rossi make the leaps to become significant contributors.

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