A Minnesota Wild Blog that WON'T make you sick and kill you!
The NHL trade deadline is still well over a month away but there appears to be another soft deadline approaching with the Olympic break coming up in just a matter of weeks. With that league-wide pause, we get that roster freeze so now general managers are trying to get all their ducks in a row so th...
The Minnesota Wild spent much of the 2020s trying to keep their defense pipeline flowing. Preparing for the day when the team would move on from Jared Spurgeon, Ryan Suter, Jonas Brodin, and Matt Dumba, they invested heavily in the position. In 2020, they used a second-round pick on Ryan O'Rou...
There was a time, not so long ago, when the Minnesota Wild beat lousy hockey teams. In the halcyon days of mid-December, the Wild traded for Quinn Hughes and looked like they could compete with the Dallas Stars and Colorado Avalanche in a seven-game series. They crushed the Boston Bruins 6-2,...
The Minnesota Wild have lost seven of their last eleven games and five of their previous seven. Their depth at center has been the main culprit of this recent skid. Joel Eriksson Ek has been out over the last two games, and the stretch has only reinforced the argument that this team needs another NH...
That's Wild The Minnesota Wild have a very crucial month. After bringing Quinn Hughes into the fold, the pressure has been on them to show that they truly are a Stanley Cup contender that is worthy of more investment before the NHL trade deadline. Unfortunately, now after a brutal 6-2 loss t...
Joe Thornton is a one-of-a-kind figure in NHL history. It isn't just because of his work-of-art beard, unique status as a playmaking power forward, or his creative goal celebration ideas. (On a related note: congrats on your recent Rooster Trick, old friend Marat Khusnutdinov.) When Thornton li...
The Minnesota Wild suffered a little bit of a disheartening defeat against the New Jersey Devils, but now get the chance to reverse it against a massively underperforming Winnipeg Jets team Thursday. Somehow, the Wild have already faced this Jets team three times this season and in the middle o...
Yakov Trenin and Marcus Foligno have brought back an edge to the Minnesota Wild, and they have made life much easier for their linemates. Their physicality doesn’t just fire up the crowd or pad the hit totals. It literally opens up ice, widens lanes, and buys time for Minnesota’s skill to take over....
Moving Matt Boldy to first-line center would be a swing for upside that fits both his evolving game and the Wild’s roster realities. It would also create an opportunity to exploit a trade market where impact wingers are far more prevalent and simply easier to find than true top-six centers. Fr...
Last spring, the Minnesota Wild may have had their best chance to advance past the first round of the playoffs for the first time since 2014-15. The Wild seized momentum early in the series, jumping out to a 2-1 lead. While they lost three straight games to book their early tee times, there were sev...
Marcus Johansson made headlines recently when he stated his desire to play for Team Sweden at the 2026 Olympic Games. Of course, most players have the ultimate goal of representing their country in best-on-best international competition. That isn't news. What made Johansson's bid for Team Swed...
Daemon Hunt has earned the right to start over David Jiricek for the Minnesota Wild because his current form, underlying profile, and fit with the team’s needs all point in the same direction. He helps them win right now in ways Jiricek has not yet consistently shown at the NHL level. Recent us...
That's Wild For the first time, Minnesota Wild fans got to experience the "Hughes Bowl" on Monday night. Quinn Hughes played host in St. Paul to his brothers Jack and Luke coming up with the rest of the New Jersey Devils to face one another for the first time since the blockbuster trade. How...
There's no more ambiguity with the direction of the Minnesota Wild. They are buyers at the trade deadline because they should be buyers. Sure, the Colorado Avalanche are the superteam of the West, but the Wild entered Sunday tied for the second-most points in the NHL. They have Kirill Kaprizov...
Ryder Ritchie’s transition from junior hockey to Boston University has been anything but simple, forcing him to confront shortcomings in his game that the WHL never really exposed. He must sharpen and test the same instincts that made him a productive player in Medicine Hat, and rebuild them against...
“The Wave” is a fun, crowd participation, bonding experience at a professional sports event, right? Everyone is watching to make sure they time it right. When it gets to your section, you stand up, put your arms in the air, and usually yell “woo!” Sometimes it dies, and sometimes it gets going,...
Kirill Kaprizov went from driving an early Hart-caliber pace last season before his lower-body injury to opening this year below his usual scoring clip. The contrast between those stretches tells a story about expectations, health, and how much weight rests on his shoulders in Minnesota. The u...
Aron Kiviharju, a 2024 fourth-round draft pick of the Minnesota Wild, was in the Twin Cities for the past few weeks as he captained Team Finland to a third consecutive appearance in the medal round. It was Kiviharju’s second year as captain of the Finnish squad. While they were disappointed wi...
The Minnesota Wild should be extremely careful about moving on from Charlie Stramel, because big, right-shot centers with his blend of size, physical edge, and growing offensive game are exactly the kind of premium asset this organization has struggled to find and develop. The Wild could move on fro...
David Jiricek has turned from an exciting prospect into what Midwesterners politely call “interesting.” Well, that's not quite fair. Minnesota-"interesting" usually translates to awful, I hate it, never show me this again, please. Jiricek is more of a mix of confusing and polarizing. That's le...
That's Wild Because of the 2026 IIHF World Junior Championships taking place in Minnesota, the Wild have been on a very long road trip and still are on the very same road trip that started 12 days ago in Winnipeg. It has been a difficult trip -- maybe not for the actual record, since the Wi...
Remember that fleeting moment last year when the Minnesota Wild were up 2-1 on the Vegas Golden Knights in the playoffs? The Wild stole Game 2, 5-2, in Vegas and returned to St. Paul with home-ice advantage. Minnesota took Game 3, 5-2, at the X. Visions of escaping the first round for the first...
The 50th edition of the World Junior Ice Hockey Championships concluded at Grand Casino Arena on Monday, with Sweden taking home the gold medal with a 4-2 victory over Czechia. The game capped off a remarkable 11-day tournament that featured ten teams, 29 games, and some of the world’s best hockey p...
Nazem Kadri’s play-driving, edge, and center depth would fit exactly what the Minnesota Wild need. His current production and faceoff workload in Calgary also underline that he can still handle tough minutes down the middle. Danila Yurov has shored up some of the issues down the middle, but his play...
David Jiricek has been caught in the middle a little bit. When the Minnesota Wild traded a boatload of draft picks and a defenseman (that they eventually got back, in Daemon Hunt) for the former sixth-overall pick, he was seen as more of an instant answer for some offense from the blue line for the...