Inside the visitors locker room at Bridgestone Arena on Wednesday night, most Minnesota Wild players still had wet hair from their postgame showers after closing the pre-Olympics portion of their schedule with a 6-5 win over the Nashville Predators.
Outside the room, as he spoke to reporters in front of a backdrop festooned with the Wild’s logo, coach John Hynes reflected on the win, which gave his team a 8-1-1 mark in its last 10. But in his head, Hynes was already switching his mental focus from the Wild to Team USA.
“Now it actually flips,” said Hynes, an assistant coach for the U.S. team. “Now the Wild goes on to break for a little bit. It’s kind of all getting pumped up for (Olympics) the next couple of days before you travel, and it’s all-in on that. So, I’m excited. It should be a great opportunity and it’s something we’re looking forward to.”
Hynes and his family will arrive in Italy on Saturday. He will fill the same role he had in 2025 during the 4 Nations Face-Off in February, when the Americans earned a silver medal, and the IIHF World Championship in May, where Team USA won its first gold medal since 1934.
Minnesota will be well-represented next week when the men’s hockey games begin at the hastily-constructed rinks in Milan.
Wild general manager Bill Guerin serves the same role for Team USA and put together the team they hope will earn the nation’s first Olympic gold medal since the 1980 Miracle on Ice. Two Wild team trainers and one of the team’s doctors will head to Italy to work for the Americans. And on the ice, eight current Wild players and two from the minor leagues will represent five countries: Sweden, USA, Germany, Czechia and Slovakia.
While the players were clearly focused on the five consecutive NHL games they won before heading across the Atlantic, some international rivalries have been creeping into Wild practice for weeks.
After Joel Eriksson Ek returned from injury to score four goals in a five-game stretch before the break, Hynes openly speculated about the American defenders who will be needed to protect their net-front from the hulking Swede should they meet in the medal round. Wild forward Nico Sturm has been breaking in his Team Germany skates at a few Minnesota practices, and joked about hiding his on-ice moves from NHL teammates that may be foes in Italy.
“I don’t have any good stuff to hide. This is my best,” he said with a grin. “They get my best every day in games, in practice, so I’ve got nothing to hide. I guess I’ve got to come up with something.”
Wild goalie Filip Gustavsson has occasionally been wearing his blue-and-gold Team Sweden gloves and leg pads in practice to break them in. That is a process that takes a few hours of facing pucks in most cases, but he admitted that the pads he will wear at the Olympics have taken a little longer to soften up. He will be looking to backstop Sweden’s first men’s hockey gold medal since 2006, the last time the Games were in Italy.
Team Sweden, which features Wild players Eriksson Ek, Gustavsson, Marcus Johansson and Jesper Wallstedt, has its Olympic debut on Wednesday against Italy at 2:10 p.m. Minnesota time.
Team USA, which includes Hynes, forward Matt Boldy and defensemen Quinn Hughes and Brock Faber, opens the Olympics on Thursday with a game versus Latvia at 2:10 p.m. Minnesota time. Sturm and Team Germany take on Denmark at the same time that day.
Wild minor league defenseman David Spacek will represent Czechia, and Wild goalie prospect Samuel Halavaj will skate for Slovakia.
Gustavsson joked that if he faces the Americans or the Germans in Milan, they will have little idea of what to expect from him after a campaign of subterfuge over the past month or so.
“I’m doing different saves now, so they don’t know what my normal saves are. They think they can shoot where it’s open, and it’s not going to be open,” Gustavsson said with a grin. “They all think they can score on me, but it’s not gonna happen.”
When asked about his goalie practicing the art of deception in Wild practices, Hynes flashed a broad smile and snapped into his Team USA headspace quickly.
“Good,” Hynes said. “That means we’re in his head already.”
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