Tony Abbott

If you're looking for one piece of 20-year-old pop culture to describe the Minnesota Wild's start to the season, it's easily Michael Scott looking stone serious into the camera and declaring, "No question about it, I am ready to get hurt again."

Heading into the season, most everyone felt they had a comfortable handle on who the Minnesota Wild were. They were a team that would probably work hard but also the leading candidate for "mushy middle" status in the NHL. If a UFO descended upon you and said they'd annihilate Earth unless you could correctly pick an NHL team to finish between 11th and 22nd, you'd pick the Wild and feel confident that humanity would see you as a savior for millennia to come.

Freddy Gaudreau entered Thursday night's game with zero points in eight games. On paper, it was a near-exact mirror to the start of his 2023-24 season, when he went pointless in nine games before scoring his first goal on November 28. In that start, Gaudreau dealt with an injury and the scrutiny that comes with going cold after signing a five-year contract, and he could never shake it off. Gaudreau suffered a lost season, with five goals and 15 points in 67 games.

Coming into the season, Kirill Kaprizov had a reputation for being a slow-ish starter who increases his production throughout the season. His career splits by month showed that October was his slowest month, during which he "only" scored 26 points in 25 games.

You can't take October away from the Minnesota Wild. John Hynes emphasized the need for a fast start for his team after coming onto the job mid-season once the Wild stumbled to a 5-10-4 record. As Banner from "Arrested Development" once infamously read... Nine games into the season, the Wild have...

We wrote about Kirill Kaprizov's incredible start on Thursday. Still, when a player goes out and drops a three-point night to extend their multi-point game streak to seven... what else can you do but marvel about him all over again? Kaprizov is refusing to slow down, adding two goals and an assis...

When the Minnesota Wild acquired Zach Bogosian early last season, it felt like they'd cast a player with the right look into the wrong role. If you were a director looking for an actor to fill the part of "Big Shutdown Defenseman" and Bogosian walked in, you'd hire him on the spot.

The Minnesota Wild's "Not Weird. Wild" ad campaign is getting a lot of love, but for my money, no local sports ad in history can compare with putting Nick Punto in an aquarium, which the Minnesota Twins did back in 2006.

At first glance, all you can say when looking at Kirill Kaprizov's season is, Perfect. No notes. You'd be insane to think anything else. With seven goals and 24 points in his first 13 games, Kaprizov is well on his way to an individual season that will be the best in franchise history. Heck, at t...

In hockey, you often ride the hot hand. Great chemistry between players is rarely the result of struggling and then finding a breakthrough. Usually, you have it or you don't, and once you have it, coaches are loathe to give it up. So it's a bit eyebrow-raising that on Sunday, John Hynes broke up ...