Keeping It Boring Is Key To the Wild Turnaround

Minnesota Wild Hockey is back, baby! It's good again. Awoouu (wild Howl)

Don't look now, but the Wild are back to the playoff bubble. After a slow start in which they didn't look like their usual, structured selves, Minnesota has ripped off four wins in their past five games and picked up a loser point for their only defeat. The team has now leapfrogged the Utah Mammoth in the standings and is in a logjam for sixth through tenth place with the Edmonton Oilers, Vegas Golden Knights, Winnipeg Jets, and Chicago Blackhawks.

How did they do it? Come on. How do the Wild win any games, historically?

Low-event hockey.

After a five-goal explosion in Long Island sparked this run, there have been a total of 12 goals scored in the first four games of Minnesota's current homestand. After completely losing their structure for most of the first month of the season, the Wild are clearly back to playing John Hynes Hockey.

We can give a lot of credit to Jesper Wallstedt and Filip Gustavsson -- and we should -- but their combined .955 save percentage over the past five games doesn't happen in a vacuum. For the first time this season, the defense is making things easy for the goaltenders. Through November 6, the Wild were allowing 3.07 expected goals per hour at 5-on-5, ranking 28th in the NHL. In these last five games, they've chopped off over a full expected goal per hour, leading the NHL with 1.99 expected goals allowed per hour.

That's what you expect to see from this team. The Wild were third in the NHL last season in expected goals allowed per hour (2.28), and haven't finished lower than third since 2020-21 (and they were fifth). They are an elite defensive club, and they're on their way to re-establishing that.

The biggest reason, at least during this stretch, is that their defensive engines are playing elite defense again. Jared Spurgeon spent a lot of time early in the season struggling, whether with rookie Zeev Buium or longtime defensive partner Jake Middleton. It looked like the beginning of the end of his long career as the anchor of the Wild blueline. Jonas Brodin looked rusty after offseason surgery, exacerbating the team's struggles.

Spurgeon has found his groove, and Brodin's back to locking things down, both allowing under two expected goals per hour over this stretch. We're seeing similar things from the Wild's best defensive forwards. Joel Eriksson Ek and Marcus Foligno are players who should always be part of the Selke Trophy discussion, but both were allowing over 3.0 expected goals per hour at 5-on-5 as of November 6. They've also tightened things up, with Foligno allowing 1.5 xG per hour at 5-on-5 in the past five games.

Those four players are so crucial to the Wild's system, and we can see the trickle-down effect of their regained defensive dominance. Brock Faber isn't struggling anymore, and that includes when he's in his own zone. Eriksson Ek is now dominating play with Matt Boldy and Marcus Johansson, finally giving Minnesota a semblance of a second punch. Foligno setting the tone on the fourth line has sparked Yakov Trenin and Danila Yurov in their own zone.

Speaking of Yurov, there's a second part to the Wild's improved team defense: the rookies are finally settling in. Yurov's offensive numbers (two goals, an assist in 19 games) aren't anything to write home about, but his two-way play was a strength in the KHL, and his strong defensive play of late should keep him in the lineup. Buium is improving in his own zone, even if he still lags behind the pack on the defensive side of the ice. The team's Wild Card, David Jiříček, has been out of the lineup in favor of the stability Daemon Hunt provides.

All together, that adds up to a Wild team that looks much more like a Wild team. Just in time. We're closing in on Thanksgiving, the unofficial start date for determining who the NHL's playoff contenders or pretenders are. As recently as November 6, the Wild were stuck in the cellar, tied with the San Jose Sharks for 13th place in the Western Conference and three points back of the bubble. Now they're in position to be in a playoff spot come Turkey Day.

It's not going to be fun for the Team of 17,095 to watch -- reflected in not being the "Team of 18,001" this season -- but it doesn't have to be. At least, not now. Minnesota proved over the first stretch of the season that they can't "out-skill" other teams, and Marco Rossi being week-to-week with a lower-body injury definitely doesn't change that dynamic. While fans surely hoped that freed-up cap space and new blood would finally change the team's DNA, that hasn't manifested through the first quarter of the season.

Something will need to change that, at least, if the Wild want to finally break out of the first round. But in the meantime, this is what they need to do to win right now: play dull, boring, low-event hockey. It's not stellar, and it's not often the blueprint for a deep playoff run, but it might just save the season. That's going to have to be enough for now.