Skip to main content

Hockey Wilderness

A Minnesota Wild Blog that WON'T make you sick and kill you!

Latest Entries

Bill Guerin Should Feel Pressure This Offseason

That's Wild The Minnesota Wild won a playoff series and that's all fine and dandy, but to what end? Now, GM Bill Guerin needs to face the music and really commit to this team. Getting Quinn Hughes signed to a contract extension is the top priority, but one thing that is desperately needed is...

The Wild's Draft Will Be About Adding Another Layer To the Foundation

The Minnesota Wild enter this year's NHL draft with what should be a clear strategy: stay patient, trust the scouting staff, and add more pieces to a prospect pool that already has real NHL value. Rather than chasing headlines or forcing a move for the sake of it, the Wild appear focused on using th...

What Are the Wild's Offseason Priorities?

The Minnesota Wild enter the offseason with real momentum, but also a clear to-do list. After a strong 2025-26 season, the organization has moved closer to contender status. Still, it needs the right mix of roster upgrades, contract stability, and long-term planning to take the next step. GM Bill Gu...

The Wild Players Are Human Beings First

The season for the Minnesota Wild has come to a close, and, as usual, there are always people who immediately want to demand that players spend their off-season doing nothing but training for the next season. There is this idea that a professional athlete, especially one whose team didn’t do w...

The Wild Are Shifting From Survival Mode To Whatever Comes Next

The Minnesota Wild’s season ended the hardest possible way: With a Game 5 loss in Denver that officially closed the book on their playoff run. After jumping out to a 3-0 lead, the Wild gave it back and fell 4-3 to the Colorado Avalanche in overtime. It was a collapse that cost them the game and sent...

Quinn Hughes Proved He'll Be Worth Every Cent

The only thing that can stop the Minnesota Wild from paying Quinn Hughes a ton of money this offseason is himself. The Wild have already gone all-in on Hughes, unloading a ton of young talent to land him from the Vancouver Canucks, even with no guarantee that he'd extend with his new team. Hughes ha...

NHL

How Do the Wild Pick Up the Pieces After Losing To the Avs?

The more things change for the Minnesota Wild, the more they stay the same. Despite this loss coming in the second round rather than the first, the Stanley Cup won’t be paraded down West 7th in St. Paul for the 25th consecutive year. The Wild lost 4-3 in overtime to the Colorado Avalanche in De...

The Minnesota Wild Are the Titanic

John Hynes’ line about the Minnesota Wild making a conscious choice not to play the way they needed to when they no-showed against the Colorado Avalanche in Game 4 will ring in people’s heads throughout the offseason. How could the Wild, a meaningful underdog, just take Game 4 off as the home team i...

NHL

Bill Guerin's Next Assignment Has A Familiar Feel

Bill Guerin had a problem. He had star power with incredible players like Quinn Hughes, Matt Boldy, Brock Faber, and others. His team had depth in net. On paper, he had everything he needed to go all the way. But as talent-laden as Team USA was, Team Canada was still a heavy favorite for the 20...

Wild Completely Gave Up And Got Knocked Out of the Playoffs

You expected some fight for the rest of the game. Just a little bit of something going their way to prevent catastrophe, but no. The Minnesota Wild laid down and relaxed for most of Game 5 and were quickly eliminated in ruthless fashion by the Colorado Avalanche and their season is over. The Wi...

NHL

What Do the Wild Need To Change With Season On the Brink?

If there’s one good thing about where the Minnesota Wild stand after four games in their second-round series against the Colorado Avalanche, it’s that there are no more narratives to create about what comes next. No more ambiguity, no more grey area. Not for tonight. Not for this game. Such is life...

The Wild Have Shown They Can Flip the Script

The Minnesota Wild took a rough loss to the Colorado Avalanche last night, but the series is far from finished. After grinding through a demanding postseason and showing they can play with one of the league’s elite teams, the Wild now find themselves in a familiar playoff spot: Their backs are again...

Wild Players Know They Have A Tough Job Ahead Of Them

That's Wild With Game 5 coming up and the potential to be knocked out of the Stanley Cup Playoffs once again, if they lose to the Colorado Avalanche in Denver, the Minnesota Wild know they have a tough job ahead of them. To force a Game 6 back in St. Paul, multiple things need to come to fru...

Danila Yurov Must Take Lessons From His Test Run

Game 4 contained multitudes for Danila Yurov. After being blanked on the scoresheet for his first six games, Grand Casino finally got to explode with Daniel Flores' iconic saxophone solo. At the end of it, the crowd shouted, "Danila!" The "Tequila" bit is the standard celebration of a Yurov goal, an...

Will This Wild Season Be Viewed As A Success?

For a moment, you could let yourself believe that the Minnesota Wild were going to upset the Colorado Avalanche. They pounded them into submission in Game 3. They had found a blueprint! No series is over until the home team loses. Well, the Wild lost at home on Monday night. John Hynes’ “T...

NHL

Brent Burns Launched Into Superstardom With the Minnesota Wild

June 21, 2003. The first day of the 2003 NHL entry draft. Prospects from across the globe are waiting patiently for a team to call their names, which will determine their future destinations. Sitting amongst the wave of young hockey players inside the Gaylord Entertainment Centre in Nashville, Tenn....

NHL

Michael McCarron Calls Josh Manson 'A Dirty Player'

That's Wild Minnesota Wild forward Michael McCarron called Avalanche defenseman Josh Manson "a dirty player" after their collision in Game 4 that ended up with Manson butt-ending his stick in McCarron's face. “He’s a dirty player. He’s always been,” McCarron said. “Not very well-respected.”...

The Wild Let Their Star Goalie Down In Game 4

In any fair world, Jesper Wallstedt would have left the ice to a serenade of "WAL-LY!" chants. The Great Wall of St. Paul played perhaps the best game of his career in Game 3, and was trending toward repeating the feat in Game 4. The Minnesota Wild put the entire game on the 23-year-old...

Brock Faber Is Becoming Minnesota's Brent Seabrook

It wouldn’t be dramatic to rank the last few weeks among the most consequential in Minnesota Wild franchise history. Minnesota seems to have found a franchise goaltender in Jesper Wallstedt, Matt Boldy is developing into a superstar, and the team celebrated a playoff-round win for the first time sin...

One Reason Why The Wild Can Win Game 4

The Minnesota Wild have an opportunity to even the series against the Colorado Avalanche and it would be massive. Going down 2-0, not many people outside of Minnesota were thinking the Wild had a chance to make it a competitive series, but after Saturday's big 5-1 win for Game 3, now they certainly...

The Wild Had the Right Ingredients For An Epic Game 3 Win

Well, well, well, that win against the Colorado Avalanche felt good, didn’t it? The first two games of the series were not exactly what Minnesota Wild fans were looking for, but this third game showed that Minnesota is a true contender. Not only did they hang with the Avalanche, but they absolutely...

Wallstedt's Calm Allowed the Wild To Play With Conviction

The Minnesota Wild needed a response in Game 3 against the Colorado Avalanche, and they got it emphatically. Behind a composed, confident performance from Jesper Wallstedt, the Wild snapped Colorado’s perfect postseason run with a 5-1 win at Grand Casino Arena, cutting the series deficit to 2-1 and...

Can the Wild Enact Their Blueprint If They're Less Desperate?

Well, there you have it. The Minnesota Wild finally put their formula into practice. They have their blueprint! They won Game 3 on special teams, held their own 5-on-5, and Jesper Wallstedt regained his form. Do that three more times, and they can dig out of a 2-0 hole and upset the Colorado Avalanc...

The Wild's Formula Finally Worked In Game 3

The Minnesota Wild found themselves in a 0-2 hole in the series because they couldn't stick to the script in Denver. Minnesota had to follow an underdog playbook against a juggernaut Colorado Avalanche team. There's a tried-and-true way to pull off an upset in the Stanley Cup Playoffs: Win the game...

The Wild Lost Their Identity Without Brodin and Eriksson Ek

The Minnesota Wild left Denver in a tough spot after dropping Game 2 to the Colorado Avalanche. They’ve fallen behind 2-0 in the series and are facing a steep climb back. Colorado’s speed and depth have been a problem through the first two games, but Minnesota’s biggest issues are more specific than...