Minnesota Wild general manager Bill Guerin did not offer any out clauses or caveats when asked if he would give head coach John Hynes a vote of confidence earlier this week.
“He’s not going anywhere,” Guerin said. At the time, the Wild had lost four in a row.
When the team closed October with a come-from-ahead home loss to Pittsburgh and the losing streak hit five, that endorsement by Hynes’ boss was promptly ignored by a small but vocal segment of the fanbase that seems to always have the torches and pitchforks at the ready.
“The coach is toast,” one posted on social media. Others called for a boycott of the team until changes are made. And some want Guerin’s head to roll, as well, after a coaching change is made.
One of the primary jobs for Guerin and Hynes is to cast aside all of that noise and run this team like the billion dollar business it is. That’s not just hyperbole. In a recent estimate of every NHL team’s value by Forbes, the Wild were pegged as being worth $1.55 billion. But if the seat upon which Hynes sits is getting hotter as the Minnesota weather gets colder, the coach’s past success, and the high expectations that winning produced, are partially to blame.
Less than 11 months ago, with a roster largely the same as this year’s, the Wild beat the Ducks in Anaheim, 5-1, to improve to 18-4-4. Minnesota, in its first full season under Hynes, had the best record in the NHL, and the best start in franchise history.
The 2024-25 season devolved into a mess of injuries. Kirill Kaprizov would miss half of the regular season. Mats Zuccarello and Jared Spurgeon missed a month each. Joel Eriksson Ek missed 36 games. Jonas Brodin missed 32. After that eye-popping start, the Wild needed a dramatic goal in the final half-minute of the regular season just to make the playoffs.
They didn’t stay long in the postseason, falling to Vegas in six games, but not before taking a 2-1 series lead and coming within a one-inch toe of Gustav Nyquist’s skate from flying back to Minnesota with a 3-2 series lead.
There were no eye-popping free agent moves over the summer, despite a notion that with money to spend, Minnesota would load up on July 1. They got veteran Vladimir Tarasenko for little in return, and he has scored one goal in the first dozen games. They signed faceoff specialist Nico Sturm, who has been injured and has an uncertain future following back surgery.
It doesn’t help that Zuccarello (lower body) has yet to play in a game this season.
But with Kaprizov locked up to the richest contract in NHL history, and top goalie Filip Gustavsson signed long term, there was a quiet expectation that another hot start and 41 fun-filled nights at the newly-renamed Grand Casino Arena were coming. A decisive 5-0 win in St. Louis on the opening night of the regular season only deepened that fanbase confidence.
Since that triumphant night in the Show Me State, the Wild are 2-6-3 and have shown very little to anyone. At their current pace of winning three out of every 12 games, the franchise’s 18th victory of the season would come on March 24, not Dec. 6 like it did a season ago.
“I think we have to get rid of last season in general,” Wild winger Marcus Foligno said Thursday. He has no goals or assists through his first 11 games.
“It’s not even close right now. It’s frustrating,” he said. “You know, last year’s last year. There’s new guys in the lineup. Every year brings something different. Right now we’re going through it. For whatever reason, it’s just mellow and vanilla right now. So, it’s not good enough.”
It’s common for Minnesota fans to be nostalgic for the good times. Recent reunions of former Wild players have, almost to a man, focused on the team’s unlikely 2003 run to the Western Conference Final. Vikings fans still dream of 1998 and what could have been had Gary Anderson stayed perfect for the season. Twins fans still come to the ballpark wearing vintage 1991 gear.
But it is now November 2025, and flashbacks to the good times a year ago will do nothing to clean up the early season mess the Wild find themselves in.
“Every year presents different challenges. You don’t pick (up) where you left off last year,” Hynes said after Thursday’s loss to Pittsburgh. “There’s four to five months in between the seasons, and there’s different dynamics to your team, and then you commit. Right now, we haven’t found that regularly. And that’s something that we’ve got to do.”
And soon.
The Wild were only three points out of a playoff spot Friday morning, with nearly the entire season ahead of them — 67 games starting Saturday against Vancouver. But this team knows better than most how much a team’s start, good or bad, can influence an entire season.
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