A Minnesota Wild Blog that WON'T make you sick and kill you!
Arguably, no team will be more disadvantaged by the NHL's Divisional playoff format than the Minnesota Wild. The Wild own the fifth-most points in the NHL. Three of the four teams with the most points will be the top seeds in their brackets, playing a middling opponent. All four teams with more poin...
about 3 hours ago | 0 reads
Danila Yurov gives the Minnesota Wild something they have badly needed for years: a big, skilled, two-way forward who legitimately projects as a long-term answer down the middle. Listed at 6-foot-1 and around 180 pounds, Yurov has a frame that can handle heavy minutes at center once he finishes...
1 day ago | 0 reads
The Minnesota Wild’s recent losing run isn’t cause for alarm, at least not yet. Still, three losses to teams lower in the standings – the Philadelphia Flyers, the New York Rangers, and the Toronto Maple Leafs – raise questions about the team’s shape heading into the playoff season. Bill Guerin recen...
1 day ago | 0 reads
The Minnesota Wild’s last three games have exposed bad habits and a level of sloppiness that will not translate to playoff success, especially against opponents they should be beating. If this group wants to make any kind of run, their standard must rise immediately in their details, effort, and exe...
1 day ago | 0 reads
That's Wild Less than a year ago, the Minnesota Wild were being heralded for their prospect pool. For a team not completely bottoming out and picking consistently in the top 10 every year, they accrued a whole lot of talent thanks to Judd Brackett. But, as Scott Wheeler is going through his...
1 day ago | 3 reads
Before we go too deep, let’s get something clear. Outside of commissioner Gary Bettman and the Utah Mammoth, who could enjoy a cakewalk to the Western Conference Finals, everybody hates the NHL’s format for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Minnesota Wild have one of the strongest arguments agains...
2 days ago | 2 reads
I’m sure, by now, that you’ve heard of Bobby Brink. He’s a Minnesota native, and he is NOT allowed to go to the box office. Apparently, everybody is supposed to feel really strongly about Bill Guerin forbidding Brink from spearheading friends-and-family ticket purchases. On top of that,...
2 days ago | 3 reads
Jared Spurgeon isn’t just the quiet heartbeat of the Minnesota Wild's blue line. He's one of the franchise’s defining figures, shaping the team’s identity on the ice and the organization's and community's culture away from it. Since arriving in Minnesota as an undersized, overlooked defenseman...
2 days ago | 1 read
That's Wild The Minnesota Wild were able to have a well-earned 4-3 overtime win over the Chicago Blackhawks (even if the score shouldn't have been that close) and after losing their previous three games to non-playoff teams, that was so desperately needed. Even if the puck bounced one single ot...
2 days ago | 3 reads
Yakov Trenin’s league-leading physical play has become one of the Minnesota Wild’s most important competitive advantages, reshaping how opponents defend and freeing up space for Minnesota’s skill to shine. On paper, Trenin’s profile still looks like a classic checking forward, but the scale of...
3 days ago | 3 reads
Last Saturday’s CCHA semifinal game between St. Thomas and Augustana was exactly what you want a playoff game to be: intense, tight-checking, the need to battle for every puck and patch of open ice. A tightly-contested affair between two evenly matched, well-coached teams. This was a big-time h...
3 days ago | 2 reads
That's Wild The Minnesota Wild are in a slump and it's not just the fact that they have lost three straight games, but it's who they have lost those games against. After their dominant 5-0 win over the Mammoth, it has now been three straight losses against non-playoff teams -- and fairly bad...
3 days ago | 2 reads
The modern-day NHL can feel a bit cliché. In a league brimming with oversized players and nepo babies, the feel-good, “worked his way to the top” player is harder to find. Oftentimes, they seem to be relegated to the background to make way for the loud, over-the-top, lifelong celebrity-type players...
4 days ago | 1 read
We’ve seen some of the most exciting moments in recent Minnesota Wild memory this season, from the Quinn Hughes trade to the great stretch in December. The Wild have beaten contenders like the Colorado Avalanche, the Vegas Golden Knights, and the Tampa Bay Lightning. Minnesota has had some high...
4 days ago | 2 reads
Quinn Hughes is redefining what it means to be an NHL defenseman, and his latest milestone, 60 assists in 60 games, is the clearest evidence yet that he belongs at the top of the league's blue line hierarchy. By matching Hall of Famer Paul Coffey’s pace from the early 1990s, Hughes is staking a clai...
5 days ago | 0 reads
The David Jiříček Trade Tree will never look good. The Columbus Blue Jackets have already gotten first-round goalie Pyotr Andreyanov out of the deal, with a second-rounder in 2027, and third- and fourth-round picks to play with in the 2026 Draft. They could either unearth quality players or cash in...
7 days ago | 1 read
The Minnesota Wild’s deadline swing for Michael McCarron and Nick Foligno is already reshaping their identity down the middle and along the walls. McCarron and Foligno give John Hynes exactly the kind of heavy, detail-driven hockey this group has been missing. When Bill Guerin traded a 2028 se...
7 days ago | 2 reads
That's Wild Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy were able to get on the score sheet against the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday night, but the Minnesota Wild succumbed to the shootout and only got one point out of the affair. [StarTribune] Unfortunately, to add to the loss, we couldn't see...
8 days ago | 4 reads
The trade deadline has come and gone, and the Wild organization looks quite a bit different at the NHL level now compared to a few weeks ago. Bill Guerin got the ball rolling early this year by acquiring superstar defenseman Quinn Hughes in a December blockbuster. That trade put the rest of the...
8 days ago | 3 reads
The Minnesota Wild’s trade for Bobby Brink is already paying off. His first goal in a Wild sweater against the Utah Mammoth was a perfect snapshot of what he brings: quick feet, slick hands, and a scorer's touch in tight spaces. The Wild traded 22-year-old defenseman David Jiricek in exch...
8 days ago | 2 reads
Before the start of the 2024-25 NHL season, Bill Guerin declared his belief that Matt Boldy could be a 50-goal/50-assist player. The breakout didn't arrive last year, despite the Minnesota Wild forward scoring a career-high 73 points. Still, the big, faster-than-you-think, skilled winger has always...
8 days ago | 4 reads
Reunions are always great after the trade deadline. Sometimes you have to wait until next season for a player to face their former team, or go and visit the city and play in front of fans that once supported them and cheered them on. Or, in the case of the Minnesota Wild's trade deadline acquisition...
8 days ago | 3 reads
There are 17 games left in the Minnesota Wild's season, and now that we're past the trade deadline, what we're seeing is what we're getting. Fortunately, that's a pretty damn good team. In the three games since the deadline, the Wild dispatched the Vegas Golden Knights with relative ease, played the...
9 days ago | 3 reads
At 2:00 pm last Friday, all was quiet on the Central front. After another excruciating stretch of rumors, fantasies, and scenarios being frantically bandied about like a soccer ball in a U6 game, the trade deadline mercifully arrived. With the Minnesota Wild emerging as legitimate contenders this se...
9 days ago | 3 reads
The David Jiricek saga with the Minnesota Wild is a textbook example of how to turn a premium-asset play into a poor trade and into broader mismanagement of organizational resources. When Minnesota acquired David Jiricek from the Columbus Blue Jackets in November 2024, they didn’t buy low; they...
9 days ago | 1 read