Credit The Coach

Wild players had done their job during the first two games of a recent West Coast trip, beating the San Jose Sharks and Anaheim Ducks by identical 5-2 scores. But then, playing their third road game in four nights after the long flight from California, the Wild struggled to gain momentum against the host Chicago Blackhawks.

The Wild had only five shots on goal in the first period when coach John Hynes decided to go to work. Hynes began juggling his lines in a way his predecessor, Dean Evason, never would have done.

Kirill Kaprizov was taken off the left wing of Marco Rossi and Mats Zuccarello’s line and reunited with Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy for 3 minutes, 40 seconds on a line that had so much success last season.

The more lethargic the Wild looked, the more Hynes juggled. With only 14 shots on goal and down 1-0 after two periods against the rebuilding Blackhawks, the Wild finally started to show life in the third.

Minnesota outshot Chicago, 19-4, in the period and Boldy beat Hawks goalie Petr Mrazek with a wrist shot at 15:29 to tie the score. The assists came from Kaprizov and Zuccarello, who were the wingers for Boldy. Hynes had made Boldy, a winger himself, a center on the line to try to continue sparking his team.

The Wild lost the game, 2-1, in overtime, but Hynes’ line juggling was a major reason his team came away with a point and, thus, five of a possible six points in the three games. The Wild employed 28 line combinations at 5-on-5 in Chicago, according to the MoneyPuck website.

Hynes deserves praise for team’s strong start
There has been plenty of well-deserved credit given for the Wild’s surprising 10-2-3 start that has put them in second place to Winnipeg (30 to 23 points) in the Central Division. Kaprizov is playing like a Hart Trophy candidate, Boldy and defenseman Brock Faber are playing like guys worthy of spots on the U.S. roster in the upcoming 4 Nations Face-Off, and Filip Gustavsson has gone from disappointment to one of the top goalies in the NHL.

But Hynes also deserves praise for what he’s doing with a team from which little was expected. Hynes was hired in late November of last season after Evason’s firing following a 5-10-4 start and during a seven-game losing streak.

Wild general manager Bill Guerin made the move to Hynes without hesitation, or an interim tag. Hynes had coached Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, a minor league affiliate of the Pittsburgh Penguins organization, when Guerin was that team’s GM, so the two were familiar with each other.

The Wild went 11-3 in Hynes’ first 14 games but then went on a 2-7-1 slide. Hynes guided the Wild to a 34-24-5 record but finished 11 points out of a playoff spot.

With a training camp under Hynes, and focused on being a tougher and more prepared team, the Wild have avoided the slow start that buried them last season. This is the 49-year-old’s third NHL coaching stop. Hynes spent four-plus years as coach of the New Jersey Devils before being fired 26 games into the 2019-20 season.

He was quickly hired by Nashville and spent three-plus seasons behind the bench with the Predators. Hyes was fired by Nashville after the 2022-23 season when the team failed to make the playoffs.

John Hynes (left) was welcomed to the Minnesota Wild by general manager Bill Guerin (right) at a news conference Nov. 28, 2023 at Xcel Energy Center. (MHM Photo / Heather Rule)

Making the right moves with talented players
Hynes is similar to Evason in that there are questions about his ability to win in the postseason. The Devils made only one playoff appearance in his four full seasons. New Jersey lost in five games in 2018 to the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Predators made the playoffs in each of Hynes’ first three seasons but never got past the first round. He’s 4-15 in the playoffs, so no one is saying he’s the second-coming of Scotty Bowman.

But since arriving in Minnesota, Hynes seems to be pushing the right buttons, and he’s done that with a team that many thought would miss the playoffs. Money Puck has the Wild’s current odds of making the postseason at 97%, behind only Winnipeg (99%) and the Carolina Hurricanes (98.9%).

Of course, it helps when you have a player as talented as Kaprizov and emerging stars like Boldy and Faber. But all of those guys were on the Wild’s roster last season, and that team couldn’t make the playoffs. Kaprizov had only six goals in the 19 games Evason coached in 2023-24 and Boldy, coming off a 31-goal season, had just one goal in 12 games. The Wild’s goaltending and defense also was an issue as the team was giving up 3.95 goals per game, second-worst in the NHL, when Evason was fired.

Kaprizov already has nine goals in 15 games this season and his 28 points put him second in the NHL to Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon (30 points) entering Wednesday’s games. Boldy is tied with Kaprizov for the team lead with nine goals in 15 games and has 16 points.This season the Wild goaltending and defense is surrendering 2.53 goals per game, to rank No. 3 in the league.

ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski polled several of the Professional Hockey Writers Association voters to get their early favorites for NHL awards. Kaprizov received 78% of the first-place ballots for the Hart Trophy, which goes to the league MVP. The early voting for the Jack Adams Trophy, which goes to the NHL coach of the year and is ultimately voted on by the NHL Broadcasters’ Association, didn’t even include Hynes as a finalist.

The Jets’ Scott Arniel was the leader and Rod Brind’Amour of Carolina and Spencer Carbery of Washington were the other finalists. If the Wild continue to play like they have early in the season, however, we’re willing to bet Hynes’ name has a good chance of ending up very high on that list.

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