ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Wild, always second to none when it comes to media relations, built a workroom 12 feet from the ice at TRIA Rink so reporters have a place to set up shop and write before, during and after practices.
It’s even equipped with a coffee maker, which we all know is the most important thing to keep a hockey writer hydrated.
On Monday, well after reporters got done interviewing coach John Hynes and after “working the room,” I took the elevator up five floors from the locker room so I could transcribe Jesper Wallstedt and quickly bang out a story on how Wallstedt and Liam Ohgren made the team.
As the elevator door opened, I heard the unmistakable sound of pucks being shot from the ice. I walked down the corridor and turned the corner, and there were Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy still on the ice, shooting, passing and challenging each other in made-up contests as they laughed away.
I looked at my watch, and it was 12:45. Hynes had spoken at noon, so they were still out there 45 minutes after the end of practice.
Make no mistake, many Wild players put in overtime. But to see the team’s superstar still on the ice well after practice working on his craft, along with the teammate Hynes and head honcho Bill Guerin believe is on the verge of stardom, was the perfect scene for the end of training camp and the start to the season, kicking off Thursday night against Columbus.
Because if the Wild want to get back to the playoffs and make a long playoff run, Kaprizov and Boldy will need to have big years.
And that’s where we start this year’s list of bold predictions: They will.
Kaprizov scores 50 goals and 100 points
The Wild are prepping to offer “Dollar Bill Kirill” 12 or 13 million of ’em per year, and this season he’ll show everybody 12 or 13 million reasons why.
If he gets off to a good start, 50 goals and 100 points may be the most conservative of my predictions. A notorious slow starter, Kaprizov didn’t really get rockin’ and rollin’ last season until after Hynes arrived in late November, and he still managed 46 goals and 96 points in 75 games.
Forty of those goals came in 56 games under Hynes — the fifth-most goals in the NHL from Nov. 28 on.
Kaprizov, 27, has looked sensational throughout camp and is in exceptional shape, maybe the best I’ve seen him look since he arrived on the scene in January 2021.
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Boldy scores 40 goals and 80 points
When Hynes talks about Boldy, he’s just oozing with anticipation. It’s easy to understand why: Hynes has been the Boldy whisperer.
Remember, when Dean Evason was fired last season, Boldy had scored one goal in 12 games. Hynes arrived and Boldy scored in his debut victory and recorded 28 goals and 61 points in 63 games (a 36-goal, 79-point pace over 82 games).
Then Hynes coached Boldy at the World Championship, and the American right wing led the tournament in scoring with 14 points in eight games.
Boldy didn’t play any exhibition games due to a lower-body injury sustained in his third practice of training camp, so he’ll likely need some time to get adjusted at the start.
But the 23-year-old looks dialed in and ready for a breakout.
Rossi and Faber get 60 points apiece
Speaking of breakouts, look for one from Marco Rossi, who began camp on the third line and will start the season on the first line between Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello.
Rossi’s start to camp was rough, but he got better and better as it went, eventually earning the top-line center spot, at least for now. After a 21-goal rookie year and an offseason in which the 23-year-old listened to trade rumors and saw pending restricted free agents Faber and Wallstedt get extended, don’t think for a second he isn’t motivated by the fact his agent hasn’t yet gotten any calls about a future extension.
As Rossi often says, “I know how good I am,” and he will show it this season and try to demonstrate why he should be the next Wild player locked up long-term.
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And as for Faber, it would be shocking if the 22-year-old doesn’t build on his Calder Trophy runner-up season. He scored eight goals and 47 points last season despite not even getting on the power play until December and playing the last two months with two cracked ribs.
Why?
“I feel like it’s important as a young player in this league, as a young teammate, as a teammate with this team who is trying to grow into a Stanley Cup someday, that it’s important whether you’re hurt Game 75 and you’re out of the playoffs or it’s Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Final, you’re going to show up the same way,” Faber explained. “That’s how I was raised, that’s what I always believed in and that’s what I told them.
“I was like, ‘I’m happy to play through this. I want to play through this. I don’t want to sit out. That’s the last thing I want to do for my teammates.’”
Faber said there was a lot of talk about shutting him down, but he resisted. If it had been dangerous to keep playing, he would have relented.
“They weren’t cracked fully through, so there was no danger of puncturing the lung because that’s only dangerous once they’re cracked all the way through. It started to get better, but probably the first month after was just … it was pretty brutal. It was not fun. It was just about trying to manage that pain.”
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Gustavsson gets the majority of starts
It’ll be a season-long challenge to determine who gets the nets as the Wild plan to carry three goalies at times.
By virtue of the Wild signing Wallstedt to a two-year, $4.4 million extension Monday, we know the plan is to get him as much game action as possible with an eye on him being one of their two full-time goalies next season.
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So how will the Wild handle the juggling act of Filip Gustavsson, Marc-Andre Fleury and Wallstedt?
Good question.
“It’s always going to be a complicated answer because we have three guys,” Hynes said. “Really, when we went into training camp, we talked about if all three play — and all three have played well — we’re going to have some difficult decisions to make. The good thing is when time’s on your side, you can use it and we don’t have to make a decision right now, so we’ll start the season with those three guys and, again, I think you have to let some things play out.”
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Our guess?
Gustavsson still plays half the games, especially if he can get back to his form of two years ago, and Wallstedt and Fleury, in his final NHL tour, split the rest with about 20 starts each. If they need to get Wallstedt more action, they send him to AHL Iowa.
Obviously, Priority No. 1 will be winning. The Wild will play the goalie playing the best.
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Foligno and Trenin combine for 500 hits
The Wild felt they were too easy to play against last season, and part of their offseason plan was to find players who would help them reestablish their hard-nosed identity.
Most importantly for that to happen, Marcus Foligno has to be healthy, and so far he is.
But the Wild also went out and signed former Nashville Predators and Colorado Avalanche winger Yakov Trenin to a four-year, $14 million contract and traded for Boston winger Jakub Lauko.
Trenin is a heavy hitter and a big, big man, and we know Foligno is, too. Five hundred hits is roughly three per game for each — very doable for third-line mainstays who will make it their job to get pucks deep and fly in on the forecheck.
Zuccarello gets 60 assists
And 59 of them will be on Kaprizov goals.
Just kidding.
Thirty-seven years young, we expect a bounce-back year from Zuccarello now that Hynes plans to, at least at the start, reunite him with Kaprizov. Remember, last season Zuccarello’s production waned after he was split from Kaprizov, but he still finished with 51 assists — four fewer than his career high.
It’ll help that Zuccarello and Kaprizov play together on the Wild’s No. 1 power play, which ranked 10th in the league last season and was extraordinary in the preseason, converting at a 53 percent rate.
Wild finish top-three in the Central
Maybe the pundits are just bored with the Wild being in the mushy middle every year, but some of the predictions I’ve seen on the Wild are out to lunch in my eyes.
If they’re healthy, this is a playoff team.
If they were healthy last year, they would have been a playoff team.
Some experts have them finishing seventh in the Central.
Seriously … come on.
The Wild not only have a lot of talent with Kaprizov, Zuccarello and beastlike center Joel Eriksson Ek up front and veteran defensemen like Jonas Brodin and a healthy Jared Spurgeon, but their core of up-and-comers are all 23 or younger — Boldy, Rossi and Faber. We’ll also get to see if Marat Khusnutdinov, who had a terrific camp, takes a step in his first full season and whether Ohgren and Wallstedt can begin the process of making an impact.
We may even see Zeev Buium at the end of the year once his University of Denver season finishes.
I don’t think these guys are serious contenders yet, but I also don’t buy that last season was the real Wild.
In fact, I see both the Avalanche and the Winnipeg Jets taking steps back, so I can see the Wild competing for a top-three spot in a very tough division.
Now, will they win a round?
I’m not ready to go that far.
That would just be way too bold of a prediction.
(Photo of Matt Boldy and Kirill Kaprizov: James Guillory / USA Today)
