How you’re feeling five games into the Minnesota Wild’s 2024-25 season likely depends on what day you’re asked or which game(s) you’ve caught. One moment, there’s seemingly every reason to believe that this group can make some real noise. But don’t revel in that optimism too long or risk the harsh slap back to reality, the kind that leaves you wondering whether what you saw was ever really there at all.
The Wild came out absolutely flying at home in the season opener, dominating for long stretches in a 3-2 win against a heavy-hearted Columbus Blue Jackets team. It was everything you could ask for in a season opener: all the big names found their way onto the scoresheet. The power play looked energized and dangerous. The goaltending kept the team in position to win. With the good vibes flowing and the previous season looking like a distant memory, how would John Hynes’ group respond?
By promptly dropping both ends of a back-to-back against Seattle Kraken and Winnipeg Jets – in a shootout and overtime, respectively – despite never trailing in either game.
Now, sure, two losses while not trailing at any point could sound like a couple of bad bounces, but for anyone who endured last season, the dread felt eerily too familiar. The 5-4 shootout loss at home to Seattle included many of the classic 2022-23 tropes you got f*cking sick of... I mean, know and love: A bizarre (non-)penalty on Jonas Brodin that led to a game-tying power-play goal. Subsequent leads getting extinguished almost immediately. Marc-Andre Fleury’s play, culminating with goals on both shootout attempts faced, offering more questions than answers.
And, you knew it was coming – all together now: 1… 2… 3… Injuries!
Hynes made a half-hearted attempt to blame the scheduling. He suggested “fatigue issues at certain times” after the second game of the back-to-back, a 2-1 overtime loss to a potent Winnipeg Jets team that certainly validated their moniker against a visibly sluggish Minnesota squad.
Fatigue? Three games into the season? Granted, three games over four days, but still – fatigue already? Not ideal.
Even more concerning for the Wild was the absence of two notable players who never made it to Game 3 in Winnipeg. Captain Jared Spurgeon, who logged nearly 20 minutes of ice time in each of the first two games, suffered the ever-ominous “lower-body injury” against Seattle and didn’t travel with the team. Spurgeon’s injury news stayed under the radar largely thanks to Joel Eriksson Ek, who found his face – more specifically, his nose – on the wrong end of an Adam Larsson elbow.
Hooo boy, it already seems like we're in for a long season. And then, would you believe it? Like something out of a fairy tale from the seventh circle of hell, here comes the old financial ball and chain, renowned Wild scourge Ryan Suter, and his latest employer, the St. Louis Blues.
A quick Google confirms that coaches will never pass up an opportunity to wax poetic, sermonizing, and word-salading their way through the essential and invaluable lessons that adversity imparts throughout a long season. With Spurgeon and Eriksson Ek still sidelined and the Wild toting a dismal 5-16-1 record over the last five seasons against St. Louis, if adversity truly is a teacher, then class was officially in session.
It didn’t seem like much at first, but that Blues game became the kind of games that a team looks back on late in the season and says, That’s when we knew we were good.
A Ryan Hartman power-play goal to make it 1-0 early. After mustering just four shots in the first period, it would take another nearly eight minutes for the Wild to register a fifth. But it was worth the wait when Marat Khusnutdinov sprang Jakub Lauko on a shorthanded breakaway to double the Wild’s lead. It only counted as one on the scoreboard, but with that jarring shoulder and slick finish, Lauko’s first goal in a Minnesota sweater sure felt like something more.
Oh, and you might have heard, the fun didn’t stop there. Four days later, a 3-1 win in Columbus earned the Wild the honor of being just the fifth team in NHL history to never trail through their first five games to start the season.
Of course, it’s not just final results that determine the feel of a team at a given point. So, what else is trending up for the 2024-25 Wild?
- Goaltending! More specifically Filip Gustavsson staking an early claim as the team’s undisputed starting netminder. The NHL’s Third Star of the Week is 3-0-1, with a 1.49 goals against, .950 save%, and at the time of publishing, sits tied with Connor McDavid for goals scored this season (1).
- Marco Rossi.
- The Penalty Kill. After surrendering a power-play goal in each of the first three games, concerns over a carry-over of last year’s leaky penalty kill have at least temporarily abated thanks to consecutive perfect games when playing a man down.
- Staying full strength. Upgrading your personnel is one way to address penalty-killing woes, but staying out of the box is an even more effective tactic. After ending last season T-3rd most in the league with 3.33 opportunities surrendered per game, the Wild have flipped the script early, offering opponents just 12 power play opportunities through the first five games (2.4).
- Eriksson Ek. He's back!
- Faceoffs. Even the long-running black hole in the Wild’s game – faceoffs – could be a cause for (modest) optimism. According to StatMuse, the Wild currently sit 18th (yes, we’ll take that) at 48.7% (+1.5% YOY). Hockey Reference has the Wild’s faceoff win-loss stats at 110-112, for 49.5%. By comparison, the Wild haven’t sniffed 50% since Eric Staal and Matt Cullen were regulars at the dot, and the Wild were paying Suter and Zach Parise to show up.
So, where are we headed? Of course, we can’t possibly know. According to The Athletic, the Wild are still a year out from being legitimate Cup contenders. But if you ask me how I’m feeling five games in? I’m pretty darn intrigued.
