By Chris Schad -
The stars were out in Las Vegas on Tuesday night. The NBA was holding the finals of its In-Season Tournament, where the Milwaukee Bucks and Oklahoma City Thunder battled for the second NBA Cup.
It was a moment that had NBA Commissioner Adam Silver beaming with joy
Meanwhile, a much different picture was being painted in St. Paul.
The Minnesota Wild were preparing for Wednesday night’s game with the Florida Panthers. Minnesota will enter the night with the third most points in the NHL, trailing the Winnipeg Jets and New Jersey Devils. Still, John Hynes was digging deep into his vocabulary to fix the Wild’s penalty kill.
The Wild are a driven, focused team. If the NHL had an in-season tournament, they would have walked away with one big, gritty trophy.
The idea of an in-season tournament may be lost on some hockey fans. The NBA’s regular season is filled with load management and teams saving themselves for the postseason. The NHL may already have its form of an in-season tournament before Thanksgiving; over 75 percent of teams in a playoff spot while carving their turkeys are playing for the Stanley Cup in the spring.
But this is as about this season and this Wild team. The season's opening months meant more, especially considering how last season began.
The Wild were a fractured team before the puck dropped on Opening Night. While Minnesota opened with a win over the Stanley Cup champion Panthers, they were already showing signs of erosion.
Jared Spurgeon suffered an injury in Minnesota's first preseason game, and Matt Boldy went out with an upper-body injury during the second regular-season game. Jonas Brodin had his first of two prolonged injury stints, and many others ended up in the trainer’s room.
Dean Evason’s message was starting to grind on everyone, and he didn’t make it to the season's quarter pole before Hynes replaced him. The Wild had a 5-10-4 record when they introduced Hynes.
The Wild made things interesting in February and March, but they were fighting uphill for the rest of the year. A run that included some of the Western Conference’s heavy hitters – specifically in the Central Division – sank Minnesota and caused them to miss the playoffs for the first time since the 2018-19 season.
For an owner who would rather lose in the first round of the playoffs than not make them at all, this was crushing to the Wild. Marcus Foligno compared himself to a rusted-out Chevrolet. Ryan Hartman admitted they weren’t very hard to play against. Filip Gustavsson had a “Come to Hynes” meeting and then stopped allowing soft goals and got in better shape.
These were good starting points but not as important as getting off to a better start when the season began. The Wild lost two of their first three games but got a point in each and rattled off nine wins in their next 11 games.
This wasn’t about the Wild winning. It was about how they were winning. Minnesota’s defense was back, making life easier for a motivated Gustavsson. The Wild allowed two or fewer goals in six of their first seven games and weren’t allowing the high-danger chances they allowed a year ago.
The Wild also found a way to play great defense while putting the puck in the net. Kirill Kaprizov took another step toward becoming a Hart Trophy candidate, and Boldy’s start made Wild fans believe they had a second star. Mats Zuccarello rediscovered his game by playing on the same line as Kaprizov, and Minnesota scored four or more goals in seven of their first nine games.
The momentum continued as the Wild went on to have the most points in the NHL after back-to-back overtime wins against the Nashville Predators and Vancouver Canucks. Analysts started to label them as Cup Contenders.
But even with the great start, it’s not a given that the Wild would have won an in-season tournament. A team like the Cleveland Cavaliers, who own the NBA’s best record at 23-4, were eliminated from the in-season tournament despite winning 17 of their first 20 games. It requires a little luck of the draw in group play.
The Wild would have had to have steered clear of the Dallas Stars, Winnipeg Jets, and Colorado Avalanche. Still, the league could have grouped them with teams like the St. Louis Blues, Nashville Predators, or Vancouver Canucks. Even if they ran into the Central Division powers, hockey is more random than basketball, leading to one bouncing puck finding its way to the back of the net.
It’s not inconceivable to think the Wild could have pulled out one of these games with a one-goal loss to the Stars and Jets this season and a 4-1 game against Winnipeg on Nov. 25 that got out of hand in the third period. But it’s also possible the Wild could have won the finals had they gotten to the finals with a 10-1-0 record against Eastern Conference teams this season.
There’s also the matter of health, but the Wild have ensured it hasn’t mattered so far. Spurgeon, Brodin, Zuccarello, and Joel Eriksson Ek spent prolonged time on the injured list. Still, the Wild have weathered the storm, even with a .500 record in their past six games.
Like the 2023-24 Los Angeles Lakers showed, winning an in-season tournament doesn’t mean a championship is imminent. But it at least makes things easier to ensure you get to the one that counts.
To date, the Wild have been up to the challenge, even if it hasn’t come with the flair that its hardwood counterpart had on Tuesday night.
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