Wild Out West

The Minnesota Wild are undefeated at home so far, but they’re spending much more time on the road in the first two months of the season, with 19 of 29 games away from Grand Casino Arena.

Don’t underestimate time on the road.

“I think sometimes maybe it’s good,” said Wild winger Kirill Kaprizov. “You spend a lot of time with your teammates. It’s better to spend the early season than later. It’s always fun.”

The Wild’s road-heavy schedule early in the season is highlighted with a season-long, five-game swing out west visiting the Edmonton Oilers (Oct. 20), Calgary Flames (Oct. 22), Seattle Kraken (Oct. 24), Vancouver Canucks (Oct. 25) and Utah Mammoth (Oct. 27).

It’s a lot of travel, and a lot of time for team dinners, bonding and card games on the flights.

“You get away from home. You get to go out to dinner together,” said center Ryan Hartman. “We see each other a decent amount at home, not as much as we do on the road, obviously. So, it’s a way to be together.

“Play some cards. Maybe some dinners. Be around and get closer as the season starts.”

The Wild enters the trip having won four of its past five games, going undefeated at home in four games and atop the Central Division standings.

The Wild are 6-2-1 overall and 2-2-1 on the road.

“You get into the 10 through 20 mark, it’s now really being consistent in how we want to play, like the details of the game, playing winning hockey, just keeping building our game where it becomes more and more and more automatic for ourselves,” said Wild coach John Hynes after a 2-1 win against Columbus on Oct. 18. “I think it’s been like that, I’d say the last few games.”

A visit to Edmonton (6-1-1) sets up a game between two of the top three teams in the Western Conference. The Oilers and Wild come into the game with six wins and 13 points apiece.

It’s a battle of elite players with Edmonton’s Connor McDavid, who entered Monday leading the NHL with 23 points (six goals, 17 assists) and Leon Draisaitl (six goals, eight assists) versus Kaprizov, who leads the league with 10 goals, and Matt Boldy (five goals, two assists) who’s fresh off a hat trick Oct. 15 against the St. Louis Blues. McDavid has 13 career goals in 28 games against the Wild, while Draisaitl has 17 goals in 29 games. Kaprizov has two goals and 13 assists in 14 games against the Oilers.

Last season, the Wild went 3-0-0 against the Oilers, including winning two games in Edmonton, with a 1-0 shutout Dec. 2, 2025 and a 7-3 win on Jan. 31. Goaltender Jesper Wallstedt won both of those games, recording a 1.50 goals-against average and .960 save percentage in those two starts in net.

Goaltender Calvin Pickard, who spent the past three seasons in Edmonton (39-23-4 in 75 games), is 2-1-0 in three career starts against the Oilers.

The Wild traditionally play well at Rogers Place, with 32 road wins against the Oilers, its highest total against any team. The Wild are 66-33-10 all-time against the Oilers, including 32-16-7 on the road.

Two days later, the Wild visits the Calgary Flames, a team Minnesota went 2-1-0 against last season. It’s the first visit to Calgary since the Wild traded defenseman Jake Middleton (82 points in 322 games with the Wild over five seasons) to the club over the summer in exchange for forward Blake Coleman and defenseman Olli Maatta.

Coleman scored 199 points (99 goals, 100 assists) in 392 career games with the Flames in five seasons from 2021-26. He has two goals and assist so far with the Wild. He carries a lot of good memories from his time in Calgary, from hockey to family, with his two young daughters spending the first five years of their lives there.

“It was special,” Coleman said. “We have a handful of good friends that are still there. It’ll be nice to go see them, and then obviously the staff that I was really close with. It should be fun.”  

Wallstedt, who comes into the road trip with a 6-1-1 record, 1.99 goals-against average and .921 save percentage this season, recorded a 36-save shutout against Calgary last Nov. 9.

The Wild play the first of a back-to-back next weekend in Seattle. Minnesota has won five consecutive games against the Kraken and has won seven in a row at Seattle for a 7-1-0 all-time record at Climate Pledge Arena. The Wild are 11-3-1 all-time against the Kraken and have outscored them 52-32.

Through the first nine games this season, former Wild forward Frederick Gaudreau led the Kraken with five goals.  

A quick turnaround, the Wild play in Vancouver the next night. It will mark the first time at Rogers Arena for defenseman Quinn Hughes since the Wild acquired him in a trade with the Canucks in December in exchange for defenseman Zeev Buium, Marco Rossi and Liam Ohgren.

Hughes returns to play against the team that drafted him in the first round of the 2018 NHL Draft. He scored 432 points (61 goals and 371 assists) in 459 games for the Canucks over eight seasons.

The Wild is 17-5-0 in its last 22 games against the Canucks.

The road trip wraps after a week, finishing in Utah to face the Mammoth, the only other team in the Central Division with six wins and just one point behind the Wild in the standings as of Monday.

The Wild and Mammoth rank near the top of the league in power-play percentage. The Wild are 1-2-0 all-time at Utah. Kaprizov leads the Wild with six points in six career games against the Mammoth.

Long road stretches in October have been a pattern for the Wild in recent seasons. Last season, they went 1-3-1 during five consecutive road games. In 2024-25, the Wild went 5-1-1 during a seven-game road stretch.

For NHL newcomer Rieger Lorenz, he’s heard about how team bonding happens on the road.

“I think road trips like that can be long and grueling, but obviously if you come out on the right side, it can be a really good thing, a really positive thing for your group,” Lorenz said.

Stacking road games early offers more pros than cons for the team, according to Hynes.

“You’re just around each other more,” Hynes said. “Guys can get to know each other in ways that they wouldn’t, and then I think getting tested on the road is good. You’ve got to be able to win at home, you’ve got to be able to win on the road.

“Even early in the season, to get some hard, stiff tests in other teams’ buildings against really good teams, I think it just makes you stronger.”