Kirill Kaprizov’s 2025-26 report card lands in a familiar place: good, productive, and still just a shade short of the ceiling he’s already shown he can hit.
For Minnesota, that’s the story of his season. He was the team’s point leader for most of the year, played 78 games, and finished with 45 goals and 44 assists for 89 points.
That’s a strong line by almost any standard. For Kaprizov, though, it comes with the obvious asterisk that he’s set a higher bar before.
He missed a little time late in the season with a lower-body injury, then sat a couple games for rest ahead of the postseason, but when he was on the ice he still drove the offense.
The rest of his regular-season numbers fit his game, too. He isn’t built around brute force, but he still posted 52 hits and 27 blocked shots. That’s a useful layer for a player whose main job is creating, finishing, and carrying the attack.
In his end-of-season interview, Kaprizov described the year and the playoff run this way: “I think we have really good year, like in the season. Playoffs, we play good and I think first round we play really good against really good team.
Second round, too. It’s always you want to be champion and win.
Everyone know this. It was good series and it’s just feel this year, it’s like not something done, you know?
Stuff like that. Think team played really good hockey this year…”
That regular season earned him an A-.
The postseason was more of the same from Kaprizov in terms of effort and production. He appeared in all 11 games, matched Quinn Hughes with 15 points, and finished with four goals and 11 assists.
He also brought a little more edge, recording 16 hits, while adding 11 blocked shots. Minnesota didn’t get out of the second round, but Kaprizov did what the Wild needed from him at the top of the lineup.
He also spoke about the group’s confidence later in that same end-of-season interview: “We have really good team and it’s how I say before it doesn’t feel now this year doesn’t feel like it’s done now. It’s hard to say.
I don’t know. We have really good team this year, and you guys can see how we play, and it wasn’t like before.
We go first round, and we’re like, maybe we win, or maybe we lose. This year it’s like everyone just believe it, and then when it was down 3-1, we know we can win this series.
It’s not what you want, to lose in the second round, but still team looking good. This playoffs and year,”
That playoff work earned an A.
Put the two grades together and Kaprizov comes out with a high A-/low A overall. The production was there, the defensive effort was there, and the leadership role was there. What wasn’t there was the extra gear that would have pushed Minnesota past the second round.
That’s why the upcoming season matters so much for him. If he can stay healthy all year and get back to the version of himself that can clear 100 points, the Wild have a much better chance of going deeper.
The wing spot next to him, previously held by Mats Zuccarello, will be worth watching, too. Someone will have to step in there and help Kaprizov do more of the heavy lifting.
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