By Tom Schreier -
The Dallas Stars entered Tuesday’s national TV game on a 14-game point streak against the Minnesota Wild (9-0-5).
Dallas made it 15 after an 8:50 pm puck drop on ESPN.
It’s unwise to make sweeping generalizations about early results. Still, it’s also wrong to dismiss them entirely. The Wild traveled to a resting Dallas team on a back-to-back. However, they made things harder on themselves 24 hours earlier when Marcus Johansson, 35, took a third-period penalty in the previous game against the Los Angeles Kings.
LA capitalized on Johansson’s undisciplined play, making it 3-2 and eventually tying the game. It was the second contest in a row where the Wild lapsed in the third period. They entered the third period down 3-2 against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday and gave up four goals in 20 minutes.
Minnesota is a Jesper Wallstedt masterclass in the shootout away from starting the season with three straight losses after beating the St. Louis Blues 5-0 in the opener. Nobody should make sweeping generalizations based on early games, but we tend to have a good idea which teams will make the playoffs by Thanksgiving. That’s only 20 games away.
The Wild essentially have the same core they’ve had recently. Their major X-factors are whether Matt Boldy and Zeev Buium become complementary high-end players to Kirill Kaprizov. Filip Gustavsson and Wallstedt must also provide playoff-caliber goaltending, and young players like Danila Yurov and Liam Ohgren must fill out gaps in Minnesota’s depth.
There are other critical uncertainties with the Wild. Will Marco Rossi play well enough for the Wild to fully commit to him? Will David Jiricek be worth the haul Minnesota traded to get him? And was Bill Guerin wise to prioritize one round of playoff experience over accumulating high-end talent early in the draft to complement Kaprizov?
Guerin bristled when a reporter highlighted that the Wild routinely qualified for the postseason, only to lose in the first round. He felt it was unfair to hold the team’s history against his group and that making the playoffs during cap hell was an accomplishment.
However, the organization should revise its standards now that the worst of the cap penalties are over. At the very least, Minnesota should expect to get out of the first round for the first time in over a decade. Then, the larger question is whether the Wild will get stuck in the same place they were in 2014-15?
In the halcyon days of 2013-14 and 2014-15, the Wild advanced past the first round in back-to-back years. It’s the only time they’ve won a playoff series since reaching the Western Conference Finals in 2002-03, Minnesota’s third year of existence. The Wild are celebrating their 25th season this year.
The Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup in 2010, their first championship since 1961. They established a mini-dynasty, winning again in 2012-13 and 2014-15. The Wild met Chicago in the second round in 2013-14 and 2014-15, and the Hawks dispatched them 4-2 and 4-0.
After Chicago swept the Wild in 2014-15, then-GM Chuck Fletcher said Chicago “didn’t beat our A game,” and focused on internal improvement. Mikael Granlund, Charlie Coyle, Jason Zucker, and Matt Dumba would have to elevate their game to beat teams like the Blackhawks, or Minnesota will have wasted Zach Parise and Ryan Suter’s prime years.
That was the last time the Wild won a playoff series.
Granlund and Coyle were playing elsewhere by the time Guerin took over in 2019. He bought out Parise and Suter, traded Zucker for Calen Addison, and let Matt Dumba walk in 2023. The Wild are Guerin’s team now, and like Fletcher in the mid-2010s, he’s banking on internal improvement to get over a hump.
However, Guerin has built a better young core than Fletcher. Matt Boldy has four goals and eight points in Minnesota’s first four games, and Zeev Buium has chipped in five points from the blue line. Gustavsson has had one good game, one lousy one, and was hardly the most culpable player for the loss in Dallas. Wallstedt kept things from unspooling against the Kings.
Still, there are some concerning trends. Columbus and LA outscored the Wild 7-2 in the third period, and Minnesota didn’t express urgency until the final 20 minutes in Dallas. The Wild are still prioritizing veteran experience over upside, playing Marcus Johansson over Danila Yurov and Zach Bogosian over David Jiricek.
Until the youth take over, the Wild are still the same team they’ve always been. Eventually, Minnesota’s young players must demand time on ice with their play. If they do, John Hynes must allow them to make mistakes, knowing the team can only go so far without them. If the Wild’s young players don’t step up, it means Guerin should have prioritized premium draft capital over playoff experience.
It’s early, but Thanksgiving always creeps up on everyone. The Wild have experienced good individual results from vital complementary players like Boldy and Buium, but they’ve played poorly as a team. We’re only four games in, but it gets early late this time of year. Minnesota still looks like it can’t hang with a team like the Stars.
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