It's Time For John Hynes To Shine

Do me a favor. Take a quick minute and imagine what this weekend must feel like for fans of NHL teams currently toiling near the bottom of the standings. Imagine for a second the deflating feeling of turning the page from that exciting 4 Nations Tournament only to watch as your favorite team plays meaningless games again this weekend.

Lucky for Minnesota Wild fans, this weekend starts the “March Towards the Playoffs” or maybe the “Sprint for Spring Superiority.” Really, whatever slogan you want to borrow from local radio hosts works for us. The excitement continues.

The Wild resumed their regular season in Detroit on Saturday, hoping to hang on to their playoff spot over these final 26 games.

But before the collective hockey world stopped discussing Thursday night's thrilling 4 Nations Tournament Championship Game, Bill Guerin appeared on KFAN 100.3 Friday with a disappointed update on Kirill Kaprizov's injury status.

The plan was never for Kaprizov to return immediately following the break. Still, the words “he’s going to be out longer than we originally thought” are not inspiring. It seems like the Wild will need to plan on not having their best player for a large chunk of these last 26 games.

Without the Russian star to lean on, the Wild must rely on the collective of their roster over the coming weeks to maintain their well-earned cushion in the standings. However, no player has the chance to be more impactful to his team than the man standing behind them on the bench.

Coaching in the NHL is rarely as vital to a team’s success as the players he sends over the boards. However, for John Hynes, this is his moment to prove to the State of Hockey that he is the guy to lead the Wild in pursuit of their first Stanley Cup.

Sure, there is a world where Kaprizov misses the rest of the regular season, in which case Guerin could help his team with a deadline trade with Kaprizov’s $9 million AAV on LTIR. Still, even that scenario is unlikely and won’t be possible until the deadline in a little over two weeks.

The Wild will simply need to carry on without their superstar. And they’ll need all the coaching juice they can get from Hynes. The next few weeks will be vital for the Wild as they attempt to position themselves for a deep playoff run in the spring.

For starters, Hynes must juggle more than Kaprizov's injury now that play has resumed. Some of the Wild’s best players were key contributors for their teams at the 4 Nations Tournament and will not have benefitted from the rest some of their teammates enjoyed during the same period.

Joel Eriksson Ek, Jonas Brodin, and Filip Gustavsson played large roles for Sweden. While Sweden only played three games, Eriksson Ek and Brodin were injured going into the tournament. Managing their minutes as the Wild resume play will likely be a reality.

The same goes for Team USA standouts Matt Boldy and Brock Faber. Both played all four games for the red, white, and blue. Faber played massive minutes, and Boldy and Faber likely played the most meaningful minutes of their careers.

On Thursday alone, Boldy played the second most minutes among all Team USA forwards, a testament to how well the 23-year-old performed on the world stage. Faber led all USA skaters in ice time during the overtime loss to Canada, logging a ridiculously impressive 28:50 on the blue line.

While the Wild resume play without their top player for the foreseeable future, Hynes must also be careful about how much he wants to lean on his best remaining players, many of whom played crucial roles in the 4 Nations Face-Off. Hynes will need to be mindful of their usage over the next week.

That alone will be a crucial task for Hynes to navigate. How he deploys his lineup will be key to the Wild’s success.

Why is their start to the last quarter of the season so important? Because even though the Wild have a ten-point cushion between themselves and the ninth-place team in the Western Conference, they can’t afford to have that cushion disappear too quickly.

Remember, this is an older roster, littered with key veterans who have often been limited by injury come playoff time during the Guerin era. If the Wild are serious about making some noise this April, they’ll need players like Marcus Foligno, Jared Spurgeon, and Brodin to be healthy in the playoffs.

The best chance at that is maintaining this cushion in the standings so the Wild can rest those players in the final week or two of the regular season. If they get off to a slow start out of this break and that cushion starts to disappear, Hynes will have to continue leaning on his veterans (and Kaprizov once he returns) to maintain their positioning in a playoff spot.

That’s a recipe for another first-round exit this spring. There is no time to “wait out the storm of injuries” for this team. Hynes’ best work behind the bench needs to start now.