Will the Real Minnesota Wild please stand up? -Minnesota Wild

How you feel after five games of the 2024-25 Minnesota Wild season probably depends on what day you're asked or what plays you caught. For a moment, there seems to be every reason to believe that this group can make some real noise. But don't wallow in this optimism for too long or you risk the harsh reality blow that will leave you wondering if what you saw was ever there.

The Wild looked completely at home in their season opener, dominating for much of the season in a 3-2 win over a slow-witted Columbus Blue Jackets team. It was everything you could want from a start to the season: all the big names found their way onto the scoresheet. The power play looked energetic and dangerous. The goalkeeper kept the team on the way to victory. With the vibes up and last season feeling like a distant memory, how would John Hynes' group react?

By immediately dropping both ends in a matchup against the Seattle Kraken and Winnipeg Jets – in the shootout and overtime, respectively – despite never trailing in either game.

Sure, two defeats despite never falling behind might sound like a few failures, but for anyone who persevered last season, the fear felt eerily too familiar. The 5-4 shootout loss at home to Seattle featured many of the classic tropes of the 2022-23 season that one got damn sick of… I mean, know and love: A bizarre (non-)penalty on Jonas Brodin that too one… led to the game-winning power play goal. Subsequent notices are deleted almost immediately. Marc-Andre Fleury's game, which culminated in both scoring attempts, offered more questions than answers.

And you knew it was coming – all together now: 1… 2… 3… injuries!

Hynes made a half-hearted attempt to blame scheduling. He suspected “fatigue issues at certain times” after the second game of the back-to-back season, a 2-1 overtime loss to a strong Winnipeg Jets team that certainly confirmed their nickname against a visibly sluggish Minnesota team.

Fatigue? Three games into the season? Admittedly, three games in four days, but still – tired yet? Not ideal.

Even more concerning for the Wild was the absence of two notable players who never made it to Game 3 in Winnipeg. Captain Jared Spurgeon, who logged nearly 20 minutes of ice time in each of the first two games, suffered the always ominous “lower body injury” against Seattle and did not travel with the team. Spurgeon's injury news went under the radar, thanks largely to Joel Eriksson Ek, who found his face – more specifically, his nose – on the wrong end of an Adam Larsson elbow.

Hooo boy, it looks like we're in for a long season. And then, would you believe it? As if from a fairy tale from the seventh circle of hell, here come the old financial boss, the famous Wild scourge Ryan Suter, and his newest employer, the St. Louis Blues.

A quick look at Google confirms that coaches will never pass up the opportunity to wax poetic, sermonistic, and flippant through the essential and invaluable lessons that adversity brings over a long season. With Spurgeon and Eriksson Ek still sidelined and the Wild sporting a dismal 5-16-1 record against St. Louis over the past five seasons, lessons were officially on if adversity is truly a teaching tool.

It didn't seem like much at first, but this Blues game became the kind of game that a team looks back on towards the end of the season and says: We knew then that we were good.

A power play goal from Ryan Hartman made it 1-0 early. After the Wild fired just four shots in the first period, it took nearly eight more minutes for them to score a fifth goal. But the wait was worth it when Marat Khusnutdinov passed Jakub Lauko on a shorthand breakaway, doubling the Wild's lead. It only counted as one on the scoreboard, but with the cracking shoulder and smooth finish, Lauko's first goal in a Minnesota sweater certainly felt like something more.

Oh, and you may have heard that the fun didn't stop there. Four days later, a 3-1 victory in Columbus gave the Wild the distinction of becoming only the fifth team in NHL history to never trail in the first five games to begin the season.

Of course, it's not just the final results that determine the mood of a team at any given time. So what else is trending for the 2024-25 Wild season?

• goalkeeper! More specifically, Filip Gustavsson made a name for himself early on as the team's undisputed starting goalkeeper. The NHL's third Star of the Week is 3-0-1 with a 1.49 goals-against average and .950 save percentage, tied with Connor McDavid for goals scored this season at the time of publication (1).
• Marco Rossi.
• The penalty shootout. After conceding a power-play goal in each of the first three games, concerns about a carryover from last year's shootout leak have at least temporarily subsided thanks to back-to-back perfect games on shorthanded games.
• Stay full of strength. Upgrading your staff is one way to address the penalty shootout issues, but staying out of the loop is even more effective. After finishing third-best in the league with 3.33 missed chances per game last season, the Wild flipped the script early, allowing their opponents just 12 power play opportunities in the first five games (2.4).
• Eriksson Ek. He's back!
• Faceoffs. Even the long-standing black hole in the Wild's game – faceoffs – could be cause for (modest) optimism. According to StatMuse, the Wild are currently ranked 18th (yes, we're assuming that) at 48.7% (+1.5% YoY). Hockey Reference has the Wild's win-loss stats at 110-112, or 49.5%. By comparison, the Wild haven't smelled 50% since Eric Staal and Matt Cullen were regulars there and the Wild paid Suter and Zach Parise to appear.

So where are we going? Of course, we can't possibly know. Accordingly The athletethe Wild are still a year away from being legitimate Cup contenders. But if you ask me how I feel after five games? I'm pretty intrigued.

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