The Minnesota Wild didn’t wait long to show they could answer adversity Thursday night.
Down early against the St. Louis Blues after a one-game road trip to Winnipeg on Tuesday, Oct. 13, the Wild absorbed the punch, punched back, and kept doing it.
They turned a 2-1 edge after the first period into a 5-2 cushion in the second, then survived a late Blues push to hang on for a 5-4 win at home on Thursday, Oct. 15.
And they did it while still missing a long list of regulars. Filip Gustavsson, Brock Faber, Nico Sturm, Marcus and Nick Foligno, Olli Määttä, and captain Jared Spurgeon were all out again, with no returns from injury yet.
Matt Boldy was the center of everything.
He scored Minnesota’s first goal to get the Wild moving, then came through again with their third goal to restore the lead. He also set up the fourth goal, the one that pushed the Wild up by two, before finishing off a hat trick late in the second period to make it 5-2. It was his first hat trick of the season, and it capped a four-point night that powered the win.
Boldy’s surge has taken off since his first goal of the season on Oct. 10 against the Florida Panthers. Against St.
Louis, he wasn’t the only one piling up points. Kaprizov finished with three, Eriksson Ek had two, and Quinn Hughes added two, combining for 11 points among the group.
“I mean, I think I said it a lot to you guys last year; it’s like the more reps and games we get together, the more we’re just going to be reading off of each other, and feel like we’re getting to a place now where we’re in a good spot with that, and it’s just so fun playing with them, and I feel like when we’re out there together we just tilt the ice. You know, credit to Hynesy and Cappy (Capuano), who are really on that, and I think I played every shift with them in the first period, and we just took over, and that really jump-started everything, to be honest with you,” said Hughes to the media in his postgame interview when asked about his chemistry with Kaprizov and Boldy.
The Wild also showed they can respond when games start badly. Thursday marked their eighth game of the season, and half of them have seen Minnesota fall behind first. They’ve already turned that around twice, including Thursday’s comeback and the Oct. 3 home opener against the Boston Bruins.
That matters even more when the lineup keeps getting shuffled. The Wild have been dealing with a heavy injury load, but the players stepping in are sticking to the plan, and the team keeps finding ways to make it work.
“Well, yes, but I also think the guys that come in, they play their role, they play their part, they don’t try to be anyone else, they come in, chip in, play their game, they stick to our structure. We know as a team when we play to our structure we’re gonna be good because we have the skill outside of our structure that makes us a really good team. New guys coming into the lineup, they know the structure, they play to it, and I think that overall that helped us show our skill when we got to that point,” said Jesper Wallstedt to the media in his postgame interview when asked about how the star players playing well has helped with the injuries.
The scoring wasn’t limited to the top line, either. Minnesota’s Russian line of Yakov Trenin, Danila Yurov, and Maxim Shabanov also connected for a goal, a play built on quick trust and sharp passing.
That kind of chemistry has shown up all over the roster so far. The Wild have typically relied on one standout combination in past seasons, but this year, more than one line is making an impact.
“Yeah, I thought we played a really strong collective team game. Top line was good, as we talked about with, and then Hughes and Brodin, but I felt like, like we talked about this morning, throughout the lineup we got contributions, we played organized, we were stingy, highly competitive, our detail was good, and that’s what you need anytime, that’s what was I think tightened up a little bit from Winnipeg,” said head coach John Hynes to the media in his postgame press conference when asked about the overall effort.
The Wild now get a couple of days off before hosting the Columbus Blue Jackets on Sunday evening, Oct. 18. They may have some injured players back by then, but if not, Thursday was another reminder that this group can still win with a depleted lineup.
In Other News...
Quinn Hughes Is Making Minnesota's Biggest Worry Harder To Ignore
Even with injuries thinning out the blue line, Quinn Hughes has been one of the reasons Minnesota has been able to keep its strong start rolling. The defenseman has taken on heavy ice time and added more offense than the Wild have expected, giving the team a stabilizing presence while several other key defenders have been sidelined. His impact shows up quickly in the way Minnesota plays when he is on the ice, especially alongside Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy.
What makes Hughes such a compelling subplot for the Wild is that his future remains unsettled even as his role keeps growing. He has not moved quickly toward a long-term extension, leaving Minnesota with a major contributor now and a looming question later. For a team trying to ride early momentum, that mix of immediate value and long-term uncertainty is becoming harder to overlook. [Read more 🡒]
Wild Suddenly Face A Quinn Hughes Decision They Feared
Quinn Hughes was supposed to be the kind of swing the Wild made to close the gap in their division, the sort of aggressive move that can reshape a roster if everything goes right. Instead, according to The Athletics Harman Dayal, Minnesota may already be staring at the uncomfortable part of that transaction, with Hughes still without a contract extension as the deadline picture starts to sharpen. The Wild paid a heavy price to get him, and the whole point was to make him part of the long-term core, not another expensive stopgap.
Now the question is whether that vision holds if the sides cannot get aligned soon enough. If Minnesota has to treat Hughes like a rental, the market would likely bring back a first-round pick and a top prospect, a decent haul in a vacuum but a far cry from the package the Wild originally sent out. Add in the clubs offseason moves and the pressure to keep pace in a tough division, and this has the feel of a decision the front office would rather not be forced into so quickly. [Read more 🡒]
Wilds New Veteran Addition Is Already Changing This Roster Feel
Blake Coleman is still new enough in Minnesota that he spent the Wilds first preseason game watching from the stands with his family, but he already fits the profile of the kind of veteran addition teams talk about when they want a room to settle down. The forward arrived in the July 2 trade that also brought in defenseman Olli Mtt, and with nearly 700 NHL games behind him, he brings more than just experience to a roster that has been looking for the right mix of polish and edge.
There is also a familiar thread running through the fit. Coleman has already worked under head coach John Hynes before, back with the New Jersey Devils, which gives this transition a little more comfort than most summer arrivals get. For a Wild group trying to define its identity early, those kinds of connections matter, even before the games start counting. [Read more 🡒]