By Phillip Garrett -
The Minnesota Wild are 4-6-0 in their last 10 games because they can’t stay healthy.
Jared Spurgeon, the team captain, is the most recent player to join Minnesota’s injured list. It seems like we are seeing new defensive pairings and line combinations nightly. Still, the Wild finished 2024 with three wins in the last four games. Minnesota has found crucial scoring from their blue line through this stretch, but where are the forwards?
With Kaprizov out, the team needs other players to step up. Matt Boldy is Minnesota’s second-most talented forward and must be more productive. However, Ryan Hartman hasn’t scored since November 19 in St. Louis and has only had three assists since then.
Hartman has been a core part of this team's success throughout his six-year career in Minnesota. He has put up his best years in the State of Hockey, topping out at 65 points in 2021-22. Between his physical play, readiness to back up his teammates, and finding the back of the net, Hartman had earned his spot on the roster.
However, Hartman's offensive capabilities have declined since then. He only scored 37 points in 2022-23 and 45 the following season. Though his numbers have been down for the last two seasons, the drop in offensive capabilities made sense. Due to injury, he only played 59 games in the 2022-23 season.
Still, even when he wasn’t scoring 65 points, he was consistent and productive in a middle-six role. As a result, the Wild signed him to a 3-year, $12 million extension.
But Hartman has been nonexistent on the score sheet since the extension.
Hartman picked up an assist in Minnesota’s 5-3 win over the Nashville Predators, his first point in 18 games. Still, he hasn’t scored a goal in 20 games. That’s unacceptable from a second-line forward who is taking up $4 million in cap space for the next three years.
He has only four goals and eight points this season. The easy solution is to ask when the Wild can move off the player, but they’re stuck with him at least until his contract year in 2026-27. Minnesota just extended him, and it would be foolish to consider a buyout. It’s also unlikely that another team would take on his contract. So, the staff needs to find a way to get Hartman scoring.
Often, coaches bench struggling players or limit their time on ice. However, considering how many players are out of Minnesota’s lineup, I doubt Hynes would bench Hartman. The coaching staff’s next option is to limit his playing time, hoping for a stronger effort on the ice. However, they’ve already limited Hartman’s playing time to 15 minutes per game in 2024-25. John Hynes is also not likely to cut his ice time any further because it would continue to put more strain on the depleted lineup.
Hynes’s solution has been to move Hartman from center to the wing. While he hasn’t been productive, Hartman has shown his flexibility in the lineup, moving up and down in the last few seasons.
What if moving Hartman back to center would spur his offensive production? With Joel Eriksson Ek back in the lineup, there is little wiggle room at center. Frederick Gaudreau and Marat Khusnutdinov are the other likely centers to move up in the lineup.
However, Khusnutdinov must prove he can score more often before the Wild move him up the roster again. Hynes has given a few tries on the third line with minimal success.
Conversely, Gaudreau has had a reasonably strong season in the faceoff dot (50%), better than Hartman’s 47.7%. However, Gaudreau has taken nearly double the faceoffs with 432 to Hartman’s 237.
On a team that hasn’t won faceoffs for the last ten years, it might not be the smartest thing to move Gaudreau to the second-line wing. However, if the team continues to get bailed out by the defense or, even worse, lose, it’s worth shuffling the lineup.
The upside of getting Hartman confident outweighs the losses on the dot. That puts John Hynes in a difficult situation. The team’s offense is not sustainable from the blue line, and Hynes knows his depth forwards must step up with all of Minnesota’s injuries. If the Wild continue falling in the standings, Hynes must move Hartman up in the lineup.
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