There has been a lot of talk about eras recently, but in the case of the Minnesota Wild, they kind of blur together.
The Wild will begin their 25th season when they travel to take on the St. Louis Blues on Thursday night. While the sting of seven straight first-round playoff exits is still fresh in everyone’s mind, this team feels different as the season begins.
Part of that is the typical practices that accompany a milestone season. The Athletic’s Michael Russo and Joe Smith joined in the fun by constructing a 25th anniversary team compiled through fan voting. While fans voted for former Wild players like Andrew Brunette, Wes Walz, and Brent Burns, seven current players also made the cut.
Some of this may be recency bias. However, it could also be a sign. Could the Wild, a franchise that has gotten out of the first round three times during its existence and hasn’t been to a Western Conference Final since 2003, be approaching its golden era?
The answer requires a history lesson. Just a few years ago, the Wild were the most vanilla team in the NHL. There were some big moments, such as signing Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, as well as memorable playoff goals by Brunette and former fan favorite Nino Niederreiter. But there has never been a meaningful run of success outside of 10 playoff appearances in the past 13 seasons and 11 in the past 13 if you include the Wild’s qualifying round loss to the Vancouver Canucks in 2019.
The biggest problem is that the Wild didn’t have a superstar fans could cling to. Parise and Suter were good but not great players. Wild fans were praying for a star who was on the same level as Marian Gaborik, who came to Minnesota with the franchise’s inception in 2000. For many years, the Wild were mostly an irrelevant team.
That is, until Kirill Kaprizov showed up.
Kaprizov’s arrival in the 2020-21 season sent a shockwave through the fan base. If you’re wondering why he’s making $17 million in his latest contract, it’s because he ultimately drives winning for the Wild. He’s the player that people put money down to see and the one that national broadcasts put on the marquee.
In some ways, Kaprizov’s success is similar to the run Gaborik had in the early years of the franchise. But when you think about recent teams that won big, they’ve had a second player help lead the charge.
Think Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane in Chicago. Or Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby in Pittsburgh. Even the Edmonton Oilers have Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, while the Florida Panthers have Keith Tkachuk and Aleksander Barkov.
The Wild have barely had one star, let alone two at the same time. But that’s why people are excited about Matt Boldy.
After having his rookie season cut in half by a fractured ankle suffered during the preseason, Boldy’s game has slowly risen through each of his four seasons. Last year was arguably Boldy’s best, logging three points in four games for Team USA during the 4 Nations Tournament and scoring five goals with seven points in the Wild’s playoff series with the Vegas Golden Knights.
If that performance is a prelude to what’s to come, things will get interesting, and the focus shifts to the supporting cast. Joel Eriksson Ek, Marcus Foligno, Jared Spurgeon, and Jonas Brodin are among the players in the current core and are now being complemented by players who made up one of the most hyped prospect pools in the NHL.
Russo pointed out that nine players age 24 or younger are on the team’s opening night roster this season. Some of those players, such as Boldy, Faber, and Marco Rossi, have already gained NHL experience. Others, such as Zeev Buium, Liam Ohgren, Danila Yurov, David Jiricek, and Jesper Wallstedt, could be household names at the end of the year.
In the past, these players would have had to step into top roles immediately, like Boldy, Faber, and Rossi. Now, these players have a wave of veterans that allow them to ease in and take the steps forward when the time comes.
Some of this excitement may be projecting what’s to come. For example, Faber had a higher “voting score” than future Hall of Famer Brent Burns and Matt Dumba, who spent 10 years with the franchise. But even The Athletic’s piece suggested he could become the best defenseman in franchise history when his career is over.
Wild fans also aren’t projecting the future because they may have already seen it. The Wild were the best in the NHL until Christmas, when Kaprizov’s lower-body injury and a wave of other ailments forced them to fight for their playoff lives until the final night of the regular season. That and the team that showed up in last year’s playoffs is the optimism that many are holding onto, and it opens a gateway of possibilities.
The Wild has already established itself as a perennial playoff team. But everything checks out; Minnesota could be making deep runs into the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. It’s a wave of hype that the franchise has rarely seen before and could open the door to the Wild’s golden era.