But Kaprizov did not join his teammates five days later as they reconvened to travel to Dallas for a game that night. Kaprizov had been battling a lower-body injury and the decision was made to shut him down before it got worse.

The Wild suffered another significant loss on New Year’s Eve when defenseman Jared Spurgeon was taken out by a slew foot from Nashville rookie Zachary L’Heureux and had to be helped off the ice.

The Wild had gone 1-1 in their first two games without Kaprizov and beat the Predators after Spurgeon’s lower-body injury. The Wild then went on the road and won back-to-back games against two very good teams in Washington and Carolina before returning to Xcel Energy Center for a 6-4 victory over the Blues.

That put the Wild at 5-1-0 without Kaprizov and 3-0 without Spurgeon. It was the latest impressive accomplishment by a team that had exceeded nearly everyone’s expectations, and had the Wild only two points behind Central Division-leading Winnipeg.

Blue-line depth being tested
But that Blues win came at a steep price. Defenseman Brock Faber took an elbow to the head from the Blues’ Jake Neighbours early in the game and played only five more shifts before leaving. Defenseman Jonas Brodin saw additional time with the minutes-eating Faber out and logged a career-high 33 minutes, 2 seconds. It was late in the game that Brodin remained on the ice for 2:41 and blocked three shots. One of them came off the stick of the Blues’ Colton Parayko and left Brodin hobbling.

He downplayed it after the game but hasn’t played since. Neither has Faber. Not surprisingly, the Wild hasn’t been the same since.

A 6-1 loss to Colorado at home was followed by a 3-1 victory at San Jose. Last Sunday, the Wild lost 4-1 at Vegas and then blew a 2-0 lead in a 5-3 loss on Wednesday to the Edmonton Oilers in St. Paul. The Wild lost second-line winger Marcus Johansson to a concussion in that one when he took an elbow to the head from Oilers superstar Connor McDavid.

There will be no case made that anyone should feel bad for the Wild. Every team loses key players to injury and must find a way to overcome it or get buried in the standings. Wild players have walked the fine line of acknowledging the magnitude of not having Kaprizov and three top defensemen, but not trying to hide behind that as an excuse for now being seven points behind the first-place Jets, only one point ahead of third-place Dallas and three up on the Avalanche.

It’s clear that John Hynes has established what he wants the message to be from his locker room. The Wild coach is very skillful at avoiding any criticism of his players but making it clear there is a standard they are expected to meet.

What’s difficult is judging which players are struggling and which are simply being asked to do more than they are capable of because of the hit to the depth chart. There also are players who are thriving, such as center Marco Rossi. Rossi has been paired with Matt Boldy and Mats Zuccarello on the Wild’s first line and has five goals and 11 points in those 10 games.

Causes for concern? 
As important as Kaprizov is to the Wild, they lost only one game without him but have now dropped three of four without Brodin and Faber. Not surprisingly, goalie Filip Gustavsson hasn’t looked anything like the guy who spent much of the first half of the season near the top of the NHL in goals-against average and save percentage.

Gustavsson registered a 21-save shutout against Carolina in the last full game that Brodin and Faber played. He was lifted in the second period of the Wild’s come-from-behind victory over the Blues after giving up four goals on 18 shots. Gustavsson has given up 15 goals in his past three starts (all losses) for an ugly .850 save percentage. If you include the Blues game, Gustavsson has surrendered 19 goals in four games for an .839 save percentage. His save percentage has gone from .926 to .914 in that time.

Cause for concern or an inevitability when guys like Zach Bogosian, Declan Chisholm Travis Dermott, Jon Merrill and rookie David Jiricek are forced to play elevated minutes because of key losses?

There are a couple of pieces of good news for the Wild. The first is that Kaprizov, Faber and Spurgeon all practiced on Friday, and bottom six forward Jakob Lauko (lower body) could be ready to return from a 13-game absence Saturday against Nashville. Brodin doesn’t appear as close, but the return of Kaprizov, Faber and Spurgeon would provide a huge boost.

The other thing the Wild have going for them is their fantastic start to the season. They went 5-1-1 on a seven-game road trip in October and had 44 points through their first 30 games.

Their start didn’t assure the Wild of a playoff berth, but it gave them a nice head start on making it. Given the current state of their roster, those early-season points might be what get the Wild into the postseason.

The post Injuries Stack Up appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

In the words of Wild general manager Bill Guerin: “Something had to change.”

That something came in the form of coaching changes. The Wild fired head coach Dean Evason on Monday before later announcing former Nashville and former New Jersey coach John Hynes as the team’s seventh head coach in franchise history. He’s spent eight seasons as an NHL head coach with a career 284-255-63 record.

Wild assistant coach Bob Woods, who coached the team’s penalty kill, was also relieved of his coaching duties on Monday. The team announced Tuesday that Patrick Dwyer will be a Wild assistant coach and focus on defense and the PK. Dwyer has been an assistant coach with the Iowa Wild since July 5.

Though the list of problems for the Wild is much longer than simply stopping with the man behind the bench, it was Evason who took the fall for the team’s 5-10-4 start to the season.

“’We can’t trade 23 players,’ is the old saying,” Guerin said Tuesday, during a news conference introducing Hynes. “But I just had that feeling that it wasn’t going to come back.”

Guerin cited confidence, swagger, ability to make plays and the overall feeling that players will accomplish something when they step on the ice as pieces that are missing from the team. He didn’t feel like that list of things was headed in the right direction; it actually got worse.

Rookie defenseman Brock Faber said it’s the players who have underperformed and lost hockey games, but they need to look internally, play for the guy next to them and do what they can to win.

“We have a good hockey team in here,” Faber said. “We have a playoff hockey team in here when we’re playing the right way. I think this is a wake-up call for a lot of us.”

Dean Evason spent parts of five seasons as the Wild’s head coach. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

Players react to in-season change
This is the second time Guerin has made a mid-season coaching change. On Valentine’s Day in 2020, he fired Bruce Boudreau with the Wild three points out of a playoff spot at the time. Evason went from assistant coach to interim head coach that day.

“The one thing I really do like about Dean is his passion, his fire for the game,” Guerin said when he hired Evason as head coach. “I am hoping that that translates to the players. I think these guys really like Dean a lot.”  

A few seasons later, this was a move that seemed to be written on the wall, with the ink becoming more permanent as the losses mounted. It didn’t seem to be a matter of if but a question of when Evason would take the fall for an extremely underperforming Wild team.

Evason was first hired by the Wild as an assistant coach in June 2018 under then-general manager Paul Fenton. Previously, Evason was the head coach for the Milwaukee Admirals in the AHL for six seasons.
Wild players Tuesday mentioned the respect they have for both Evason and Woods. Marcus Foligno used the word “shocked” regarding Evason’s firing while also recognizing the frustrating start to the season turned into a bad snowball effect.

“Losses pile up, this is what happens,” Foligno said. “Unfortunately, there are coaches that have to take that fall on the knife for players like us. It’s not fair, but at the same time, it’s a wake-up call – and we’ve had enough of these this year to understand what’s needed and we need to get out of it.”

Players had a brief meeting with Hynes before Tuesday’s morning skate ahead of the evening’s home game against the St. Louis Blues. Hynes has some familiarity with a few players. He knows goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury from the Pittsburgh days, and coached Jon Merrill in New Jersey and the national development program. He also coached Patrick Maroon and Marcus Johansson in New Jersey.

“I think you have to come in and, first and foremost, get to know the players,” Hynes said. “It’s on the fly, but I believe that when you come into this situation, everybody’s hurting.

“I think it’s important to really come in and connect with those guys, connect with the coaches, get feedback – particularly from the players on some of those things that they’re seeing and feeling.”

With a new voice leading them, perhaps the team will get back to finding its identity.

“I think we’ve had spurts of it,” said captain Jared Spurgeon. “But we haven’t put it together in full games. There’s a period of half periods where I think we’re getting back to it, and then we get away from it and start chasing games. I think that comes with consistency and obviously holding each other accountable.”

John Hynes speaks with the media at his introductory news conference as the Wild head coach. (MHM Photo / Heather Rule)

Hynes, Guerin go way back
Players should expect consistency behind the bench for a while, too. Guerin said Tuesday that he and Hynes settled on contract terms, though he wouldn’t give any specifics to the deal except to say: “This is not a one-year thing.”

Guerin and Hynes have a long relationship, going back to Guerin’s days working in player development and his time as an assistant general manager in the Pittsburgh Penguins organization. Guerin made it clear he believes in Hynes with the detailed and passionate way he has coaching hockey.

Hynes was the Predators head coach starting on Jan. 7, 2020, just a few weeks before Evason took over the Wild. Hynes coached the Devils from 2015-19. He was previously a head coach in the AHL for five seasons, leading the Wilkes-Barre Scranton Penguins to a 231-126-27 record and five consecutive appearances in the Calder Cup Playoffs.

A Boston University player with four Frozen Four trips and a 1995 NCAA championship, Hynes made two stops as an assistant coach with Mass-Lowell (2000-01) and the University of Wisconsin (2002-03) along with his nine seasons behind the bench for USA hockey’s National Team Development Program as an assistant coach from 1998-2000 and 2001-02, and head coach from 2003-09.

The coaching change didn’t come down to one game, according to Guerin. He added that he thought the team played well during its Global Series games (a shootout and overtime loss) in Sweden recently. But things still just “didn’t feel right,” Guerin said.

“There’s kind of that ‘it’ factor, and you feel that and you know it,” Guerin said.

Any ‘it’ factor for Hynes won’t include, as Guerin put it, reinventing the wheel or making wholesale changes. Instead, both Hynes and Guerin acknowledged it will be some little tweaks.

“It’s important to be able to play a fast game, and come in and have some plans to get out of our zone with speed, get on the attack, get north, be able to hem teams in the offensive zone,” Hynes said.

The post Wild Hire Hynes appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

The defeat against a Penguins team that hasn’t been anything special dropped the Wild to 7-8-2 and tied them with three teams that are a point behind Nashville for the second and final wild card playoff spot in the Western Conference. The Wild’s third consecutive loss also gave them a 2-5-1 record at Xcel Energy Center, a building in which they went 31-8-2 during a franchise-record 113-point season in 2021-22.

“We’re just tired of losing,” defenseman Jon Merrill said. “It’s not something we want to get comfortable with.”

Unfortunately, it’s becoming clear the Wild might not have a choice.

Players can call as many meetings as they want, coach Dean Evason can continue to juggle lines and defensive pairings and Evason and his players can talk all they want about the need to work harder or play smarter.

At this point, who could blame Kirill Kaprizov for posting a ‘Help Wanted’ sign in the Wild’s dressing room? (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

But there is one thing that appears almost certain to remain a problem. This team is going to struggle to score goals. Winger Kirill Kaprizov remains a star player, although he entered Saturday’s game against Carolina having gone four games without a goal. The bigger problem: How much goal scoring depth exists behind Kaprizov?

The Wild doesn’t have anything close to a No. 1 center to put between Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello, who also is struggling. Frederick Gaudreau had gotten the opportunity, but in practice on Friday he was replaced by Sam Steel, who was listed as the Wild’s fourth line left winger on Thursday. Gaudreau’s hard work has made him a favorite of Evason, but he isn’t qualified to center a first line and moving Steel to that spot amounts to a hockey Hail Mary.

Linemates Joel Eriksson Ek and Marcus Foligno are coming off seasons in which they had career-highs of 26 and 23 goals, respectively. But it would be silly not to expect regression and those two have seen very limited time with winger Jordan Greenway, whose presence with Eriksson Ek and Foligno made up the tough-to-play-against GREEF line. Greenway has appeared in only two games because of injury issues but might be set to return Saturday on a line with Gaudreau and Matt Boldy, who got off to a good start but has no goals and one point in his past seven games.

The Wild hoped that 2020 first-round center Marco Rossi would make a contribution, but he has spent much of the early season on the fourth line and has only one assist in 16 games. Rossi might one day be ready to ascend to the top line, but for right now he is playing between two hard workers in Connor Dewar and Mason Shaw.

All of this leaves one wondering exactly how the Wild is going to get the kind of offense they did last season when they averaged 3.8 goals per game? This season that figure has dipped to 2.8 goals and Minnesota hasn’t scored more than four goals in a game since getting six and losing by one to the Kings in the season’s second game.

The Wild have dealt with injuries but there is no one who is going to return and fix the goal-scoring issue. Greenway had only 10 goals last season. Ryan Hartman scored 34 goals as the center on the Wild’s top line, but that was a career year and he got off to such a rough start this year that he was demoted to wing. It’s also unknown when Hartman will return from an upper body injury suffered in a fight against Chicago in late October.

The obvious missing piece is winger Kevin Fiala, who finished second to Kaprizov last season with a career-high 33 goals and 85 points. Fiala was traded to the Kings during the offseason in large part because of the salary-cap issues the Wild face for the next three seasons due to the buyouts of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter’s contracts in the summer of 2021. Fiala and Boldy formed an immediate chemistry when the latter was summoned from Iowa of the AHL last year but so far Boldy hasn’t found that chemistry with any of his current teammates.

More is needed from players like Filip Gustavsson if Minnesota’s offensive woes continue. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

Pinning all of the Wild’s troubles on Fiala’s departure would be an exaggeration of the facts. There are other issues, such as Rossi’s slow start or Tyson Jost having been placed on waivers after he didn’t perform as expected. But there is no question this team misses Fiala, and it doesn’t help that backup  goalie Filip Gustavsson gave up a few terrible goals against the Penguins after Marc-Andre Fleury was placed on injured reserve because of an upper-body injury suffered in Tuesday’s loss at Nashville.

The Wild’s homestand won’t get any easier with Winnipeg and Toronto following the Hurricanes into town. Two of the last three games will provide weaker teams with Arizona and Anaheim bookending a visit from Connor McDavid and Edmonton. The problem is nothing is easy for the Wild and there’s no guarantee that’s going to change anytime soon.

“We want to win,” Eriksson Ek said. “We want to compete and win hockey games. And right now we’re not. If people were happy in here, I would be more worried than right now.”

Being unhappy is fine, but being able to do something about it is more important. Are these Wild talented enough to address their problems with more than words? They better hope so or this could turn into a long winter at the X.

The post Loss Fatigue Strikes Wild appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

“We want to have fun, but we’re still working,” said Wild head coach Dean Evason. “We haven’t had a lot of practice time. It was work today, but it was also clearly fun to be outside and to have the fans. As we’ve talked about, our fans have been absolutely incredible all year.”

Those incredible Wild fans who showed up for the outdoor practice two seasons ago have seen this Wild roster go through some major changes.

It’s amazing how much has happened since the Wild last hosted an outdoor, open-to-the-public practice on Jan. 2, 2020. The most obvious item, of course, is the global pandemic that changed everything before that season was over.

But looking at the Wild team specifically, so much is different. In January 2020, Bruce Boudreau was still the Wild’s head coach. Though he was fired on Valentine’s Day that year. There was also a ton of buzz at the ROC (Recreation Outdoor Center) at the time with the official announcement of the NHL Winter Classic coming to Target Field. That game was originally scheduled for Jan. 1, 2021 before the pandemic canceled those plans.

Following the announcement and practice in early 2020, the media talked with Boudreau and a few players to get their thoughts on the exciting news of playing outdoors. Zach Parise said the Winter Classic coming to Minnesota was “a little overdue.” Ryan Suter reflected on the Wild’s Stadium Series game in 2016 against the Chicago Blackhawks. Eric Staal, 35 years old at the time, looked forward to the Winter Classic having never played in an outdoor NHL game.

That trio no longer wears Wild sweaters. Neither do Devan Dubnyk, Mikko Koivu or Jason Zucker, who played in the Stadium Series game. Only captain Jared Spurgeon and alternate captain Matt Dumba remain from that 2016 squad that played in the Stadium Series. Dumba scored the game’s first goal in a 6-1 Wild win at then-TCF Bank Stadium at the University of Minnesota.

The loss for guys like Staal, Suter and Minnesota-native Parise looking to play that Winter Classic is the gain of Minnesota products Nick 

Bjugstad and Alex Goligoski. Bjugstad grew up playing hockey for Blaine High School while defenseman Goligoski represents the North out of Grand Rapids.

“It’s kind of crazy that we get to play an outdoor game in Minnesota with my hometown team,” Bjugstad said. “I’m sure that’ll sink in probably a few days before. That excitement’s there.”

For now, Bjugstad and his teammates got a taste of outdoor hockey at the ROC. It was a typical Wild practice, until the end when players tossed souvenir pucks into the stands for eager fans. The players talked about how perfect the weather would be if they could copy/paste this for Jan. 1. Conditions were so perfect that bundling up in layers wasn’t necessary, according to alternate captain, Marcus Foligno.

“We know it will probably be a little bit colder than today,” Foligno said. “We were all thinking about it (the Winter Classic) out there for sure.

“Obviously being in a bigger stadium. It’s the same thing, you step on that outdoor pond and you feel all the good jitters when you were young again. It brought back a lot of good memories today.”

Some players even stopped to greet fans or sign autographs on their way off the ice. A few players, like Goligoski and Jon Merrill, went back onto the ice afterward with their kids skating around and shooting at the net. Kirill Kaprizov didn’t come off the ice because he was busy passing a puck back and forth with a youngster donning a Goligoski jersey.  

With so many road games and a tiring travel schedule lately, the outdoor practice was a welcome break.

“When you step on the ice in front of the fans in this kind of scenario, you get that childhood feeling again,” Foligno said. “A lot of fun, a lot of smiles on guys’ faces today. We’re all looking forward to that Jan. 1 game.”

The rescheduled Winter Classic against the St. Louis Blues at Target Field will also mark the first time the event will be played in primetime. It’s the 14th anniversary of the first NHL Winter Classic in Buffalo.

While Evason, Bjugstad and Foligno all agreed that weather conditions were just about perfect for outdoor hockey during Saturday’s practice, Minnesotan Bjugstad acknowledged it might be a different deal in January.

“You feel it out,” Bjugstad said. “Like I said, we’ve all had the cold feet, the cold fingers. I’m sure the adrenaline will just kick in, and it’ll be a game to remember.”

The post Outdoor Appetizer appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.