Cynical folks from about 40 other states and a handful of Canadian provinces like to poke fun at the self-proclaimed State of Hockey, noting that for all of Minnesota’s hockey talent and culture, the Stanley Cup has never been won here.

To the contrary, the NHL’s most revered trophy almost always makes a summer stop in Minnesota, when a triumphant player from Eden Prairie or White Bear Lake or Grand Rapids brings the chalice to their home rink for a day.

That will almost certainly be the case again in 2025, as there are Minnesotans sprinkled all over the rosters of the eight remaining playoff teams. But as it has been every year since the NHL first came to Minnesota in 1967, it won’t be the North Stars or the Wild taking possession of the Stanley Cup for the summer.

That leaves Wild fans, players and team management plenty to ponder between now and the September start of training camp. As they cleaned out their lockers and had exit interviews with coach John Hynes last week, here were five topics on the mind of Minnesota’s NHL club.

High expectations for David Jiricek

When Wild general manager Bill Guerin said that he feels the team is pretty well set in goal and on defense and will focus more on forwards when free agency begins, he wasn’t just thinking about the expected emergence of Zeev Buium on the Wild blue line.

The Wild will not have a first round pick in the NHL Draft next month, as that was part of the price (along with a player and three other picks) Guerin paid to bring hulking defenseman David Jiricek to Minnesota. Jiricek played six NHL games for the Wild, and spent 27 more in Iowa before a season-ending injury in late March.

“We want to see him on this team,” Guerin said last week. “We’ll have a spot, but how much he plays, where he plays, how high up the lineup he plays, situations, that’s up to him. He’s got to earn it. But we believe in him.”

Guerin called Jiricek’s season, “crazy,” but praised the 21-year-old from Czechia for his attitude and strong personality. They expect Jiricek to spend at least part of his summer in Minnesota training and skating with the Wild.

Planting the Flower

When he said goodbye to the NHL in a lengthy press conference last week, goalie Marc-Andre Fleury talked about all his wife and three children have sacrificed following the future Hall of Fame puck-stopper from Pittsburgh to Las Vegas to Chicago and eventually to Minnesota for the end of his career.

Fleury said his first goal is to be a husband and father and fill their needs for a while. And he made it clear that their immediate plans involve staying in Minnesota, ideally with the beloved player nicknamed “Flower” in some kind of role with the Wild. Fleury said he looks forward to having that conversation with Guerin.

“I feel like I’ll have to try different things, see what he has in mind, maybe if he has something for me. I think I know goalies better, but I don’t want to be a coach,” Fleury said. “I don’t want to do media, no TV, nothing like that. I don’t know if I can help the younger guys, maybe in some ways that could be fun, too. But I think my first thing though is I wanna be home more. I want to be there for my kids’ birthday and school play and just go walk Halloween with them and stuff like that. That’s my main concern.”

Guerin not too long ago was a retiring player that got a shot in management, and has found roles in the organization for a few recently-retired NHL defensemen with Minnesota ties. While not having specifics, Guerin vowed to find a place for Fleury.

“I will have a spot for him. What that is, I’m not sure yet. We’ll see what direction he wants to go in,” Guerin said. “But just like we did with Derek Stepan and Alex Goligoski, these guys are finishing long careers. They need some time to decompress and do some dad stuff and husband stuff, and get acclimated a little bit to retirement.”

Mats Zuccarello is anti-social

In the off-season, you might see veteran Wild forward Mats Zuccarello on the golf course or fishing or vacationing with family. You will not see him on Instagram, X or TikTok anytime soon.

In his season-ending press conference, Zuccarello commented on the negativity that is out there on social media platforms, and how in too many cases it has become an avenue to attack people, such as pro athletes, who work in the spotlight.

“I think it’s a good thing in the beginning, but now it’s becoming something that is just all negative, all bad stuff, you know,” he said. “Like in the beginning of it, you have Facebook to talk with friends that you didn’t talk to. Now, you’re just making a Twitter account to talk (crap) about someone. It’s a different world out there right now.”

While hockey players generally have thick skins and can take a fair amount of punishment on the ice, Zuccarello said it gets to them when players’ families have to read negativity directed at Wild players after a tough loss.

“You know it’s a part of the job, and it’s not just in hockey. It’s in everything, if you’re a known person out there,” Zuccarello said. “I think it’s probably people taking more abuse than us hockey players in terms of all of it, but it’s just like, a common thing in the world right now. It’s scary. It’s just all negative. The world needs to smile a bit more and be more positive.”

Despite missing close to a month due to a groin injury, Zuccarello had 19 goals in 69 games, which was one of his top five NHL seasons individually. He will be 38 when the next training camp begins.

Surgery for Joel Eriksson Ek

In a season where players paraded to the training room or operating room, the Wild were relatively healthy by playoff time, although Marcus Johansson missed time in the postseason due to injury.

Veteran Wild center Joel Eriksson Ek played well for his native Sweden in the 4 Nations Face-Off in February, then went on the injured list upon returning to Minnesota and was out for all of March, returning in time to score the last-minute goal that got the Wild into the playoffs in their final regular-season game.

At his exit interview with reporters, Eriksson Ek said he was likely to have surgery to repair a core muscle soon.

“I will probably have surgery on something, a little bit, hopefully next week. Nothing that’s going to be (an issue) into next season,” he said. “I mean, it’s hard I think. It’s part of it, but when it builds up like that, for sure it gets hard. Especially, I think, also mentally you get drained having those nagging things. It’s no fun. But like I said, it’s part of it. (I’m) just going to try to get healthy and feel good.”

Eriksson Ek was limited to 46 of 82 regular-season games in 2024-25, missing time with a broken nose in October. Guerin said he does not foresee offseason surgery for anyone else on the roster.

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The Gophers men’s basketball team has added Maryland transfer guard Chance Stephens on Friday.

The 6-foot-3, 185-pound shooting guard played in only seven games for the Terrapins last season, averaging 1.3 points in 5.3 minutes per contest. Stephens missed the 2023-24 season with an injury.

The Riverside, Calif., native started his college career at Loyola Marymount (Calif.). He averaged 6.0 points and 1.0 rebound across 17 minutes in 28 games in 2022-23. He averaged 37% from three-point range as a freshman in the West Coast Conference.

The Gophers are down to two remaining scholarship spots after adding eight players since last season.

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By BRIAN MELLEY, Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — In late September 2023, as the first big storm of the fall was kicking up in the U.K., a malicious plan was hatched to take down one of England’s favorite trees.

Daniel Graham sent a message to his buddy, Adam Carruthers, telling him to “get the saws warmed up,” suggesting they might get some work clearing fallen trees.

But it wasn’t high winds that brought down the famous Sycamore Gap tree that night, jurors determined Friday. It was Graham and Carruthers — not cleaning up damage from the storm, but creating a mess of their own.

FILE – The felled Sycamore Gap tree is removed at Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, England, Oct. 11, 2023. (Owen Humphreys/PA via AP, File)

The pair were convicted of two counts each of criminal damage by a jury in Newcastle Crown Court after little more than five hours of deliberations over two days.

Even without the smoking chainsaw, prosecutors were able to prove the case through a trove of digital evidence that either put the men near the tree at the time it was felled or showed them excitedly discussing it the next day as the story of the tree’s demise went viral.

Crime caught in the act

The prime piece of evidence was a grainy video on Graham’s phone of the crime being committed on the dark and stormy night.

Footage of the tree’s last stand showed a solitary figure silhouetted beneath the towering canopy in a struggle with the trunk as the unmistakable sound of the chainsaw whined above the wind. With a single crack, the buzz of the saw died down, the person stepped back and the tree that had stood about 150 years crashed to earth.

Metadata pinpointed the location of the video at the tree’s location in Northumberland National Park. Other data showed Graham’s Range Rover had traveled there.

The Sycamore Gap tree was not Britain’s biggest or oldest sycamore, but it was prized for its picturesque setting, symmetrically planted between two hills along the ancient wall built by Emperor Hadrian in A.D. 122 to protect the northwest frontier of the Roman Empire, and had attracted generations of followers.

The tree had long been known to locals but received international attention in Kevin Costner’s 1991 film “Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves.” It drew tourists, lovers, landscape photographers and even those who spread the ashes of loved ones.

“For over a century, Sycamore Gap has been an iconic natural landmark in the northeast of England, bringing immeasurable joy to those visiting the area,” Gale Gilchrist, chief prosecutor for the region, said in a statement after the verdict. “In just under three minutes, Graham and Carruthers ended its historic legacy in a deliberate and mindless act of destruction.”

Convicts could face ‘lengthy’ sentences

Neither Graham, who had a small construction business, nor Carruthers, a mechanic who sometimes worked with him, showed any visible reaction as the verdicts were read.

Justice Christina Lambert ordered both men held in custody until sentencing on July 15 and said they could face “a lengthy period in custody.” The maximum sentence for criminal damage is 10 years in prison.

The defendants, once close friends, both testified that they were at their respective homes that night and had nothing to do with the crime.

Graham pointed the finger at Carruthers, saying he was obsessed with the tree. Graham said his friend and another man had taken his Range Rover and phone to the site to frame him.

Carruthers said he didn’t understand why people were so upset about “just a tree,” saying it was “almost as if someone had been murdered.” His lawyer suggested Graham told a desperate lie after being caught.

Prosecutor Richard Wright said the two men were in on it together from the start, with evidence showing Carruthers had gone far out of his way earlier in the day to go near the tree on a reconnaissance mission.

Wright said he couldn’t say who cut the tree and who held the phone, but the two men were the only people in the world with the video on their devices.

As Graham’s vehicle was tracked on its way back toward his home in Carlisle — about 40 minutes away — Carruthers received a video from his partner of their infant and replied, “I’ve got a better video than that,” Wright said.

“At the time of that text conversation, the only people in the world who knew the tree had been felled were the men who had had cut it down,” Wright said. “And the only people in the world who had access to the video were the men who had filmed themselves in the act of cutting down the tree: the defendants Graham and Carruthers.”

Missing: one chainsaw and a ‘trophy’ wedge of wood

The next day, the two feverishly exchanged messages after the tree was discovered.

“It’s gone viral. It is worldwide,” Graham said.

Carruthers forwarded a Facebook comment by a man who criticized the “disgusting behavior” of the “weak” vandals.

Carruthers said he’d like to see the man “launch an operation like we did last night.”

Wright said police never located the chainsaw used to fell the tree, but each man had access to plenty of saws — a fact they both tried to downplay. Investigators also couldn’t find a wedge of wood cut from the trunk to drop the tree in the right direction.

But images on Graham’s phone showed a slice of wood and a chainsaw in the back of his vehicle at his home. A forensic botanist said there was “very strong evidence” it was the missing wedge that Wright suggested had been taken as a trophy.

Prosecutors offered no evidence of a motive for the crime other than calling it senseless vandalism. But Wright suggested to jurors in his closing argument that the men cut the tree down for “a bit of a laugh” but had failed to realize the anger they would spark in the “arboreal equivalent of mindless thuggery.”

The tree was originally valued at more than 620,000 pounds (around $830,000) and damage to the wall was estimated at 1,100 pounds (nearly $1,500).

But on Friday prosecutor Rebecca Brown said those figures are in dispute and are likely lower, but would still easily fit in the top category of harm for sentencing purposes.

We recently asked readers to nominate a favorite restaurant patio for spring and summer days in the Twin Cities.

The nominated restaurants are now in the running for “Best Patio” in our readers’ voter contest.

Voting takes place May 9-18.

Submit your vote in the form below:

 

If you want to head to a patio right now:

Here’s a look at last year’s reader picks.
Here’s the Twin Cities patio guide assembled by our Eat team last year.

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