Articles in Minnesota Wild

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from Joe Smith of The Athletic,

Jesper Wallstedt wrapped up a local TV interview at Wells Fargo Arena last week and left the rink for the day.

The Minnesota Wild’s touted goalie prospect was asked during the segment about how the American Hockey League could also be called the “Always Hungry League,” and he had no disagreements.

“It really is,” he said.

It’s hard for every decision Wallstedt makes not to be about the next level right now. The 21-year-old Swede has rethought and rewatched his mid-January NHL debut countless times; a 7-2 loss will tend to stick with you. He was disappointed but not deterred. More so, he’s determined, especially after the pep talk he received from coach John Hynes on a plane ride home during a brief NHL stint this year.

Spend an afternoon with Wallstedt, and you’ll see the determination everywhere. Even his car: a humongous white Dodge Ram 4×4. He used to drive an Audi but notes that this will be better for inclement weather in the Twin Cities.

“Perfect in a snowstorm,” Wallstedt said.

“I’ll take anything to get up there.”

It shouldn’t be long.

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NEW YORK (April 1, 2024) – Minnesota Wild forward Ryan Hartman has been suspended for three games, without pay, for unsportsmanlike conduct during NHL Game No. 1166 in Minnesota on Saturday, March 30, the National Hockey League’s Department of Player Safety announced today.

The incident occurred at 3:30 of overtime. Hartman was assessed a 10-minute misconduct.

Hartman is considered a repeat offender under the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and, based on his average annual salary, will forfeit $62,195.13. The money goes to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.

For a full explanation of the decision, complete with video, please click on the following link: https://www.nhl.com/video/topic/player-safety/hartman-suspended-three-games-6350098419112.

Watch below.

from Joe Smith of The Athletic,

Marc-Andre Fleury isn’t hiding the fact he’s scoreboard watching as the Wild fight their way back into playoff contention.

“I love hockey,” he said. “I watch who is doing what. It’s going to be a tight race until the end.”

And Fleury, 39, wants to remain in Minnesota to see it through.

With the NHL’s March 8 trade deadline less than two weeks away, Fleury could draw some interest from contenders looking for goaltending help. President and general manager Bill Guerin has said Fleury will “call the shots” on whether he wants to get dealt — a right the future Hall of Famer has earned. The three-time Cup champion has a full no-move clause. But with Minnesota having won seven of its past nine games and currently just two points out of the West’s second wild-card spot, Fleury indicated it’d be hard to envision finishing the season anywhere else.

“If we were last in the conference, maybe it’d be a little bit different,” Fleury told The Athletic on Saturday night. “But this is my team. We’ve been battling together, right? I take pride in winning with this team. I want us to make the playoffs. That’s my first priority. I think being in the hunt, it’s fun, it’s challenging. And I want to be here and see this team make the playoffs.”

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Scoring by periods and box score is here.

Game highlights are below.

SAINT PAUL, Minn. - Minnesota Wild President of Hockey Operations and General Manager Bill Guerin today announced that captain Jared Spurgeon will miss the remainder of this season due to injury. He is scheduled to have left hip surgery on Feb. 6 and will then have back surgery approximately four weeks later. Spurgeon is expected to be fully recovered before the start of training camp in September.

With the win, he moved past Patrick Roy and is now in second place for career wins.

He won't catch Martin Brodeur at #691.

Win #551 for Marc-Andre Fleury, tying him with Patrick Roy for second place on the NHL career wins list.

Some crazy sequences from the game...

from Paul Friesen of The Winnipeg Sun,

It seems hockey’s old-school remains in session, even if it takes a hidden electronic device to expose it.

Players see a teammate get hurt and they plan for revenge. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Or, in the case of the Winnipeg Jets and Minnesota Wild, two fights and a stick to the face for a crosscheck that sent a player to the injured list.

It turns out that New Year’s Eve afternoon fight between Adam Lowry and Minnesota’s Pat Maroon, right at the opening faceoff, wasn’t enough for the Wild.

They’d lost Kirill Kaprizov for a week or two in the previous game, after all. Someone had to pay.

Wait a minute – didn’t Brenden Dillon answer for that hit later in that game, dropping the gloves with the Wild’s Jake Middleton?

Yes, he did. And that should have been the end of it.

But hockey being hockey, players won’t rest until they get a little closer to a full pound of flesh.

It didn’t matter if the flesh didn’t even belong to Dillon.

Perhaps if Maroon had left Lowry writhing in pain on the ice, done for the day, that early fight would have been enough.

But Lowry seemed fine. Wasn’t even bleeding.

Enter Minnesota forward Ryan Hartman.

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NEW YORK (Jan. 2, 2024) – Minnesota Wild forward Ryan Hartman has been fined $4,427.08, the maximum allowable under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, for high-sticking Winnipeg Jets forward Cole Perfetti during NHL Game No. 564 in Minnesota on Sunday, Dec. 31, the National Hockey League’s Department of Player Safety announced today.

from Joe Smith and Michael Russo of The Athletic,

Kaprizov’s first return to Winnipeg since being hurt there in March was a rough one. This was where Kaprizov suffered a lower-body injury on March 8 when Logan Stanley toppled over him, forcing the Wild star to miss a month. Kaprizov got hurt again on Saturday, leaving the game in the third period after taking a couple nasty, unpenalized cross checks to the lower back by Dillon, the Jets’ hard-nosed defenseman. It looked to be a retaliation after Kaprizov floored Dillon with a reverse hit. Give Jake Middleton credit for fighting Dillon later in the period, taking on the tough defenseman in defending Kaprizov.

more ($) on the game...

Coach Hynes had no updates on the injuries (goaltender Filip Gustavsson did not come out for the 3rd period)

from Michael Russo of The Athletic,

Bill Guerin, the Minnesota Wild’s president of hockey operations and general manager, has been the focus of an investigation following a human resources complaint by an employee who alleged verbal abuse in the workplace, five team and league sources have confirmed to The Athletic.

The alleged incident that led to the investigation occurred in late November and was reported to the team’s HR department, which commissioned an outside law firm to investigate. Two attorneys traveled to St. Paul and interviewed more than 15 members of the organization.

Two team sources indicated that the investigation into Guerin’s alleged behavior was complete and the findings were delivered to upper management and ownership early this week. Wild management determined that Guerin had not committed a fireable offense, team sources said Wednesday.

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from Michael Russo of The Athletic,

“I’m not going to hole up in my apartment worried people are going to look at me, saying, ‘There’s the coach of the Wild who got fired,’” Evason said. “I’m not embarrassed. I don’t think we did a crappy job. I want to be out and about. This has been my home for five years. I’ve lived in that same place for five years. I walked to the rink every day. I love it. I love living here. I love the people. I love the team, the organization. Does it get emotional sometimes? Sure. I mean, I get emotional. But I’m more thankful than anything.”

Mid-afternoon Monday — after coaches had met in the morning to put together video clips for players ahead of Tuesday’s Blues game, showing the type of fast hockey that had been missing in the first 19 games — Evason got a call from Guerin asking him to come down to his office at Wild headquarters.

Evason called his wife and told her one of two things was happening: “Either I’m getting fired or he’s going to ask me to fire some of my assistant coaches, and I don’t know what I’m going to do if he asks me to do the latter.”

In other words, Evason was willing to sacrifice his job to save Bob Woods, and it wasn’t the first time. That happened after last season, too, when Guerin was dismayed by the penalty kill.

Evason walked into Guerin’s office, looked at his face as he sat behind his desk and knew right away: “Are you firing me, bud?”

“He said, ‘Yeah,’ and he stood up, came around the desk and we hugged and he just started crying,” Evason said. “And so did I. I said, ‘Billy, I didn’t expect it to happen, but I’m so grateful and so honored to have the opportunity,’ and I thanked him. I’m not bitter. Do I want to still be the coach of the Minnesota Wild? Yeah, of course. But I understand what he’s doing. Do I agree with it? No, of course not, because I lost my job and Bob lost his job. But we had a fantastic conversation.”

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Watch below.

update, original post was on 11/26/23 at 7:43pm,

NEW YORK (Nov. 27, 2023) – Minnesota Wild forward Ryan Hartman has been suspended for two games, without pay, for tripping Detroit Red Wings forward Alex DeBrincat during NHL Game No. 316 in Detroit on Sunday, Nov. 26, the National Hockey League’s Department of Player Safety announced today.

The incident occurred at 7:51 of the third period.

Hartman is considered a repeat offender under the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement and, based on his average annual salary, will forfeit $41,463.42. The money goes to the Players’ Emergency Assistance Fund.

For a full explanation of the decision, complete with video, please click on the following link: https://www.nhl.com/video/topic/player-safety/hartman-suspended-two-games-6341860873112.

from Michael Russo and Joe Smith of The Athletic,

Dean Evason sounded as exasperated as he ever has following Sunday’s loss in Detroit, the Minnesota Wild’s seventh straight defeat.

His team was running out of answers. So was he.

“We’ve got to change something,” he said.

In the end, the change was Evason.

The Wild fired Evason on Monday afternoon, hoping to provide a jolt to a club that has lost 13 of its past 16 games, nose-diving to near the bottom of the NHL standings. Assistant coach Bob Woods, who coached the defense, was also dismissed. Woods, in his seventh season in Minnesota, was in charge of a penalty kill that ranked last in the NHL having allowed 23 goals.

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from Michael Russo of The Athletic,

Minnesota Wild goalie Marc-Andre Fleury said he was upset Friday that due to league rules, the team would not allow him to wear a custom-designed mask for Native American Heritage Night in honor of his wife, Veronique, who is a registered member of a tribe in Canada.

Ahead of this season, the NHL clarified its guidance about what players and teams can do for “special initiatives” like heritage nights, including banning specialty jerseys during warmups. That also initially included banning the use of stick tape, like Pride tape, to support social causes — a decision the league reversed late last month.

Fleury said he was willing to limit his use of the mask to warmups — and accept a fine, according to his agent Allan Walsh — but the team will not let him because they were twice instructed by the NHL that it was against the rules. Fleury called the league’s decision “stupid.”

The NHL did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

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from Michael Russo and Joe Smith of The Athletic,

It had been a brutal start to the Minnesota Wild’s season, but it all came to a boiling point for president of hockey operations and general manager Bill Guerin as he watched the roster he assembled humiliate itself on home ice a week ago.

It’s one thing to lose 8-3 to a division rival, but not competing, giving up a franchise-record five power-play goals and cratering so deeply to the Dallas Stars caused Guerin to call the team together Monday morning, hours before the Wild departed for Stockholm.

Guerin let everybody have it — both as a team and individually, where it especially hurt.

“Was it a scream-fest? Bit of both.” Marcus Foligno told The Athletic. “The one thing about Billy, when he talks, everyone respects the s— out of him. That guy talks, you’re gonna really, really listen.”

“It was kind of a kick in the ass, figure our s— out kind of meeting,” Ryan Hartman added. “Something we definitely needed.”

Guerin voiced to his players — and his coaches — exactly what he voiced to The Athletic shortly before Sunday’s 4-3 overtime loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs in their second and final game of the Global Series, which is the Wild’s fifth straight defeat and 11th in the past 14 games: “I’m not happy. I’m not happy with where we are.”

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from Joe Smith & Michael Russo of The Athletic,

This is a frustrating and tense time for the Wild, their slump casting a cloud on what was supposed to be a fun Global Series trip to Sweden. It is times like this when Cup winners like Maroon, Bogosian and Marc-Andre Fleury can exert their influence and lean on their experience on how to get out of a slump.

“We’ve got to find a way to get back to the basics,” Maroon said. “Focus on what we can control. I don’t think we’ve really had a lead besides the first game of the year. And it’s tough when you’re chasing the game. Then bad habits creep in. In (15) games, we might have had one good start.”

“Every team goes through it — teams that are good, teams that aren’t that good,” Bogosian said. “The little details matter. They all add up in the big picture.”

The big picture right now can seem bleak. Only the worst-in-the-NHL San Jose Sharks have given up more goals than the Wild, and only the Sharks have trailed more often in games, which is stunning considering defense was supposed to be this group’s identity. The Wild’s penalty kill is dead last in the league, having given up a franchise-record five goals in Sunday’s 8-3 loss to the Stars.

“Embarrassing,” said Fleury, who gave up a career-high eight goals in that game. “It’s already happened too many times to us. We’ve got to find ways to prevent that so we don’t have to open up to get back in the game. We need to play our game plan. But we had some good talks to get our spirits up. It’s a long season, but everybody’s good in our conference, everybody’s getting points. We need points, too, and now.

“We can’t wait too long. We’ve got to get going here.”

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