Wild 2024-25 preview: Projected roster, season outlook, playoff picture
What exactly are the Minnesota Wild heading into the 2024-25 NHL season? Right now, it’s hard to pin down.
For starters, they’re a team that missed the postseason in 2023-24, largely due to injuries to key players. Captain Jared Spurgeon was limited to just 16 games, and emotional leader Marcus Foligno was sidelined after 55 games.
The Wild also fired head coach Dean Evason in late November during a particularly frustrating slump of seven straight losses, replacing him with former New Jersey Devils and Nashville Predators head coach John Hynes. However, for those suggesting a leadership change in the front office, team owner Craig Leipold disagrees.
Leipold has expressed full confidence in general manager Bill Guerin, despite Guerin’s inability to assemble a team that has advanced past the first round of the postseason, via The Hockey News.
“There is no pressure on Bill. He and I are totally connected with this,” Leipold said. “We didn’t make the playoffs last year and we can all look back at why it didn’t happen but as we say in the business, s**t happens. Hopefully, it doesn’t happen two years in a row. We’re going to work hard and our plan is to make the playoffs. So there is no what if we don’t? We are gonna make it.”
Could Guerin be on the hot seat if the Wild fail to qualify for the playoffs this season? Again, not so fast, according to Leipold.
“There has been discussion of that. Those aren’t thoughts that you have before the season ever starts,” Leipold said. “To be honest with you, I’ve never walked into a season going, I may have to let him go, you know, 20 games or something. You just play the season.”
With that said, let’s take a look below at the projected roster.
Projected Wild roster
Isaiah J. Downing-Imagn Images
The good news for the Wild is that their top line – featuring Russian sniper Kirill Kaprizov, Matt Boldy, and Joel Eriksson-Ek – remains intact. This trio accounted for the 9th most goals in the NHL among all line combinations last season.
It would also be unfair to say that the Wild lack solid complementary pieces further down the lineup, with players like Ryan Hartman, Mats Zuccarello, and Marco Rossi contributing. Additionally, Matt Boldy hit a career-high 69 points and was rewarded with a significant seven-year contract extension.
They also signed defenseman Yakov Trenin and traded for Jakub Lauko from the Bruins, though neither player is a top-tier talent. Meanwhile, Russian native Marat Khusnutdinov is expected to earn a full-time roster spot and play in a full campaign after getting 16 games of experience last year.
Minnesota’s three roster position player groups breaks down as follows:
Forwards: Kirill Kaprizov, Matt Boldy, Joel Eriksson-Ek, Ryan Hartman, Mats Zuccarello, Marcus Johansson, Marco Rossi, Marcus Foligno, Yakov Trenin, Frederick Gaudreau, Jakub Lauko, Marat Khusnutdinov
Defensemen: Brock Faber, Jonas Brodin, Jacob Middleton, Jared Spurgeon, Zach Bogosian, Declan Chisholm
Goaltenders: Filip Gustavsson, Marc-Andre Fleury
Wild 2024-25 season outlook
After a quiet offseason with no major additions, many Wild fans are left wondering whether the team can return to the playoffs, let alone win a round for the first time since they defeated the St. Louis Blues in the 2015 Western Conference Quarter Finals.
As a whole, the Wild need more offensive production after their 2.43 goals per game at even strength were good for 25th overall in the NHL; they also finished 21st in the NHL with 3.02 goals per game as a whole. Additionally, they’ll need bounce-back performances from goaltenders Filip Gustavsson and Marc-Andre Fleury, who regressed from the numbers they’d posted the previous season.
Another key area that the Wild must improve upon is their penalty kill, one of the worst in the NHL last season after successfully killing off just 74.2% of their opponents’ power play opportunities.
The latest projections from The New York Times don’t offer an optimistic outlook for Minnesota’s playoff hopes. They predict the Wild will finish with approximately 91 points, a slight improvement over the 87 they accumulated in 2023-24 and representing a 47% chance to earn a berth.
However, that would still leave them seven points shy of the 98 points it took the Vegas Golden Knights to secure the final Wild Card spot in the Western Conference last season.
If the Wild’s performance against top divisional opponents—the Dallas Stars, Winnipeg Jets, and Colorado Avalanche—doesn’t improve from last season’s 0-10-1 record against them, their playoff hopes will be slim.
Overall, there’s little indication that the Wild’s lack of postseason success will come to an end in 2024-25. While not bad enough to land another franchise-altering talent, the team seems poised for another middle-of-the-road campaign. They will likely either just barely squeeze into a playoff spot, only to become first-round cannon fodder, or miss the postseason altogether.
The post Wild 2024-25 preview: Projected roster, season outlook, playoff picture appeared first on ClutchPoints.
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