Exciting season gets Wild over the hump, still short of ultimate goal

The sting of the Game 5 and Second Round series loss to the Colorado Avalanche was still fresh for Minnesota Wild players a couple of days later. 

After winning a playoff series for the first time in 11 years, the Wild lost to the Avalanche in five games in the next round, abruptly ending their season after being one of the top teams in the NHL in 2025-26. 

“I think it still is an empty feeling,” Wild captain Jared Spurgeon said when he met with the media on May 15. “I think the group we had and the feeling we had in the room, we wanted a lot more than we went through, so obviously, it still to this day is pretty disappointing.”

Though the losses to Colorado were tough to swallow for the team and its fans, it’s one piece of the puzzle to a season that included many exciting moments, emotional wins, a blockbuster trade and elevated expectations. 

The Minnesota Wild finished with a 46-24-12 record and 104 points in the regular season, third in the Central Division standings. 

“We had a poor start. We got it together. We started playing like an elite team, and we were able to trade for Quinn Hughes, and we got even better,” said Wild President of Hockey Operations and General Manager Bill Guerin. “We played like an elite team. There’s a lot of positives there.”

The tough start to the season included a 3-6-3 record in October. But the Wild turned the calendar to November with a 5-2 win over Vancouver, and around the same time started awarding a Redwood Hat to the player of the game after victories. That led to a 11-1-2 record in November, along with a fun prop for team camaraderie in the locker room. 
Things were already trending in a more favorable direction with the team after such a strong November and early December. The outlook, expectations and excitement all soared even more on Dec. 12 when Guerin acquired stud defenseman Quinn Hughes in a trade with the Vancouver Canucks. 

Hughes knew at the time the significance of the trade on this fanbase, knowing Guerin made a big move for a franchise that has aspirations to win a Stanley Cup. From the standing ovation he received in warm-ups in his first game at Grand Casino Arena, that first game was special for him.

“I could definitely feel the fan support, the love and the excitement,” Hughes said, after the season. 

“Since the trade, it’s never really been about me; we have a great group here. … We’ve just got to keep growing and learning.” 

Hughes dazzled on the ice with his skating abilities, and the way he could keep the puck in the zone, along with his offensive production. His arrival made the Wild a better team, and his defensive pairing with Brock Faber was in sync, too. 

While Hughes scored five goals and 48 assists with the Wild during the season, Faber’s offense sparked to career-best numbers, too, with 15 goals and 51 points in 80 games.

“I thought Fabes immediately got better,” Guerin said. “I don’t know exactly what it was, but it was almost like Fabes saw Quinn playing and … to me it was like, ‘oh wow, you can do that stuff as a defenseman.’

“He immediately became more assertive, used his legs more, just got more involved. … That, to me, was a really positive effect that I think Quinn had on him.” 

The Wild put together a strong season with the playoffs always on the horizon. Kirill Kaprizov led the Wild in scoring during the regular season with 45 goals and 89 points, followed by Matt Boldy’s 42 goals and 85 points. Kaprizov also became the franchise’s all-time leading scorer in early March when he scored his 220th career goal, passing Marian Gaborik. 

At the trade deadline in March, Guerin improved the team again with depth pieces. That included bringing the Foligno brothers together, adding Nick Foligno to play on an NHL team with his younger brother, Marcus. 

Center Michael McCarron came over from Nashville at the deadline, and he played in a top-six role in the playoffs after an injury to Joel Eriksson Ek in the First Round. 

“I think when we were playing well, we were a really good hockey team,” McCarron said. “It was fun to be around the rink and be around this crew of great guys.”

Guerin also added Minnetonka native Bobby Brink and veteran defenseman Jeff Petry ahead of the deadline.

It was a busy March down the stretch, following the Olympic break in February when Boldy, Faber and Hughes won a gold medal with the Guerin-managed Team USA. Clinching the playoffs for the 12th time in 14 years with a 5-2 victory over Vancouver on April 2 was an inevitable formality, like the First Round Stanley Cup playoff matchup with the Dallas Stars. It was a series penciled in for months. 

The Wild couldn’t have started the playoffs on a better note, grabbing Game 1 on the road with a 6-1 victory. The offensive contributions were there, they defended well and rookie Jesper Wallstedt earned his first career playoff victory in net. 

Trailing 2-1 in the series didn’t stop Boldy from tying the series with his overtime winner. The Wild grabbed momentum with a Game 5 win before sending Grand Casino Arena into an emotional state of delirium to win the series on home ice in Game 6. 

Wallstedt, who had a terrific bounce-back season as part of the goaltending tandem with Filip Gustavsson this season, was in net for that game as he started all but one game in the playoffs. Plenty of moments, from his first shootout victory of the season to winning back-to-back shutouts with his parents in the stands, stand out from the season to Wallstedt. 

But seeing the fans and their reactions when the Wild finally got past the First Round has its place at the top. 
“I think that was the biggest moment, just the honor and everything to be part of a team that we finally did,” Wallstedt said. “We finally took a step in the way we want to go. 

“Obviously, it’s only my first year but finally felt like we were taking a step in the right direction and we’re getting closer and closer to that ultimate goal.”

That set up the collision with Colorado, the NHL’s best team in the regular season, in the Second Round. After a quick turnaround following the Dallas series, the Wild were in an 0-2 series hole before playing a very solid Game 3, a 5-1 victory in what turned out to be their only win of the series. 

The Wild lost Game 4 at home before a late Avalanche rally turned into an overtime clincher in Game 5. Guerin said Game 4 was a disappointment, more than Game 5. 

“Because when we play our game, when we do the things that we’re supposed to do, play our game,” Guerin said. “The way we’re built. Not the game you want to play, the game we need to play, and when we do that, we’re very, very hard to beat.

“In Game 3, I saw our team do that.”  

While Guerin said there’s a lot to look forward to, including a core group of young players and an overall good team, he added that the ultimate goal of winning a Stanley Cup still hasn’t been achieved.

“I guess we got over that hump, finally, but again, that’s not our goal,” Guerin said. 

There were a lot of good things that happened this season, and the Wild is headed in the right direction while still needing to improve and keep moving forward, Guerin added. 

Coach John Hynes mentioned the consistency level that’s necessary to have success in the playoffs, where every game is important, also varying from the regular season when seeing different opponents instead of the same team for four to seven games. 

“I think experience is the best teacher,” Hynes said. “We had some great lessons coming out of the Dallas series, and then we have some harder lessons coming out of the Colorado series.”

Vladimir Tarasenko, a Stanley Cup Champion who scored 23 goals during the regular season after signing with the Wild, said the team in Minnesota is a tight group of guys who want to win a Cup. 

“As you see during the whole season long, this team can play against every other team in the league, and I do think this can happen,” Tarasenko said. 

While getting over that First Round playoff hump was a good thing, the learning and the will to improve never stops. The excitement of the season as a whole, including a playoff run into the month of May, is something to take away from the 2025-26 season. 

“This year has been quite a ride,” Guerin said. “We feel the support, we feel the love, we feel the passion that this market and community has for the Minnesota Wild and the players and how much they live and die with us and how much they want to see us succeed.”