The Wild Are Caught In A Vicious Cycle

In late November, the Minnesota Wild won their first four games under John Hynes and seven of eight after losing in Edmonton and Vancouver. They played their final two games of 2023 against the Winnipeg Jets and lost both, stifling any momentum they got from the new-coach bump. Those two losses to Winnipeg were the beginning of a stretch where they lost eight of nine games as they entered 2024.

But they recovered to win three of their next four, only to lose to the Nashville Predators and Anaheim Ducks before the All-Star Break. They lost three straight to the Carolina Hurricanes, Nashville, and the St. Louis Blues before the trade deadline, turning them into sellers. Still, the Wild rolled into St. Louis having earned points in five straight games, moving within two points of a playoff spot. But the Blues beat them in a shootout and moved within one point of Minnesota in the standings. 

“We didn't have our execution down today. That's all,” Marcus Foligno said after Sunday’s loss in St. Louis. “It's a team that's very beatable, and we didn't play to our standard. Third period was good. We had a good comeback.

“Obviously, it's nice to get one, but we need two.”

That’s been the Wild’s problem all year. They’re their own worst enemy. They’re Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill; they fall short every time they must execute to sneak back into the playoff picture. Minnesota is playing a dangerous game, one they’ve committed to for a long time after Bill Guerin handed extensions with no-move clauses to almost every veteran on the roster the way Oprah gives away cars. The Wild stand on the precipice between qualifying for the Stanley Cup Playoffs and falling into the void of the mushy middle.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. Minnesota plummeted to the bottom of the Western Conference standings under Dean Evason. Under Hynes, they started to emerge from Earth’s molten core, only to repeatedly fail to surface. It’s better to burn out than fade away, except in hockey, where Macklin Celebrini would look better in forest green than the 15th overall pick. 

Minnesota had every reason to sell off its aging veterans and tank and focus on player development this year. But they couldn’t because Guerin locked Foligno, Mats Zuccarello, Ryan Hartman, and Frederick Gaudreau into long-term deals. Even if you think building a winning culture is more important than losing games to add another star to complement Kirill Kaprizov, what kind of environment is the Wild creating? 

The NHL investigated Guerin for verbally abusing an employee. The Wild mutually parted ways with their cap guy in the middle of cap hell this season. They have erratically gone on long winning and losing streaks all year. The players appear to have built strong chemistry, and Hynes has kept them from bottoming out since taking over. But is that a good thing? Would it be wrong to shake things up with a team struggling to take the eighth seed in the West? Do we think they’ll execute in Vancouver or Denver in April when they struggle to beat St. Louis in March?

Hockey is a weird sport. The Wild could wriggle their way into the playoffs and upset someone. But it’s hard to see them repeatedly beating the best teams in the West in a seven-game series when they come up short against division rivals in important regular-season games. Minnesota hasn’t won a playoff series since the 2014-15 season, and they have lost in the first round seven of the past eight seasons. 

Guerin is making the same mistake Chuck Fletcher made before him, just in a different way. Fletcher committed to Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, who are good hockey players but not All-Stars like Marian Gaborik or Kaprizov. He soldered a flawed young core together, committing to them before they were proven, and got stuck in no-man’s land. Guerin has done the same with older players without securing Kaprizov past the 2025-26 season. The Wild look like they’ve entered a vicious cycle, and it’s hard to see how they escape it.