Three takeaways: With camp done, season begins for real

With Wild Training Camp, presented by U.S. Bank, completed, the 2020-21 regular season begins Thursday night in Los Angeles. Here are Dan Myers' three takeaways from camp:

1. Now they count.
There's no buffer zone or exhibition game, no massive roster cut-down day or dead period. Wild training camp wrapped up officially on Wednesday morning and the team hopped aboard its airplane for a trip to the West Coast and games in Los Angeles and Anaheim.
In a small bit of irony, it's the same area of the country where the Wild played its final two games of the 2019-20 regular season, almost 10 months ago.
When the team arrives in Southern California, it won't have the luxury of a nice team dinner, a cab ride to the beach or the opportunity to spend some time in the sun. More than any other season, because of COVID-19 restrictions, this really will be a business trip, one where players will shuttle back and forth between their hotel rooms and the rink.

And that's OK, says captain Jared Spurgeon. In a 56-game season, the Wild cannot afford any lulls in its game or lengthy losing streaks. It must come out in top form right from the get-go.
"You have to treat every little segment as a mini-playoff series," Spurgeon said. "You go in and you play the same team two, or even four times in a row, so you have to treat games like playoff games. The season is different playing only seven teams and the points are huge. A good start and getting off on the right foot is going to be big for us."
This season, there aren't any inter-conference games or nights where you can afford to not bring your best. Every game has that "four-point" feel to it. Every night, you're either gaining big ground or losing big ground to at least one team in your division.
2. A relatively healthy bunch.
The Wild will start the season with three non-roster injured players, including Alex Stalock, Mats Zuccarello and Marco Rossi.
The only one of those three that is a surprise is Rossi, who returned from the World Junior Championship and served a seven-day mandatory quarantine, but was deemed unable to play because of an upper-body injury. He's out indefinitely, and that's certainly a blow.
But everyone else that showed up on day one of training camp last week that was expected to be in the lineup on Opening Night will be in the lineup on Opening Night.
The forward lines haven't changed at all in the week and a half the Wild has been skating, which provides a pretty good indication of the group coach Dean Evason will ice against the Kings on Thursday.
Nick Bjugstad will center Zach Parise and Kirill Kaprizov, who is set to make his much-anticipated NHL debut at the Staples Center.
Nick Bonino will serve as the pivot for Marcus Johansson and Kevin Fiala.
Joel Eriksson Ek will skate between Jordan Greenway and the newly extended Marcus Foligno.
And Victor Rask will play center between Nico Sturm and Ryan Hartman.
On the back end, Ryan Suter and Matt Dumba will form one pair, Spurgeon and Jonas Brodin a second, and veteran Greg Pateryn -- a SoCal resident in the offseason -- will begin next to Carson Soucy.
Cam Talbot will start game one and is expected to see a bulk of the starts this season. Kaapo Kahkonen will serve as the No. 2, and it will be interesting to see how and where Evason deploys him early in the season.
3. What about the taxi squad?
The pandemic has forced the League to make a number of adjustments, big and small, to how teams will look this season.
One has been the addition of the taxi squad, a 4-6 player addition to each team's roster that has players who can be "called up" in case of a COVID-19 positive test or other injury.
Players who are on the taxi squad practice and travel with the NHL team, while collecting the same salary they would were they in the AHL.
In addition to the expected Opening Night lineup laid out above, Gerry Mayhew and Brad Hunt will serve as extra guys on the active NHL roster, which officially has 22 names on it.
Minnesota will start the season with its full complement of six taxi-squad bodies as well, a group that consists of forwards Luke Johnson and Kyle Rau, defensemen Matt Bartkowski, Louie Belpedio and Dakota Mermis, and goaltender Andrew Hammond.

Quote of the week

"It's like he's a different generation, his personality, his jokes, his way around the room. You can kind of tell that he grew up in an NHL locker room with an NHL dad and mom. It's just different. He knows when to have a good time and he knows when there's no BS. He's not afraid to call people on things. He plays an honest game and he's an honest person, so we love having him around."" - Wild GM Bill Guerin on Foligno after announcing the Wild winger had signed a three-year contract extension with the club

Note of the week

Defenseman Ryan Suter sits just two assists shy of a couple of career milestones. His second assist this season will mark the 500th of his NHL career, which would make him just the second active defenseman to reach that mark. It will also be his 300th in a Wild sweater, which would make him the second player in team history to achieve it (Mikko Koivu, 504).

Stock rising

Talbot. The veteran netminder had a rock solid training camp and was outstanding in the team's second scrimmage on Sunday, allowing just one goal while playing the full 60 minutes. He's expected to play a bunch this season.

Prospect watch

After a breakout performance for Team USA, helping the Americans to gold at the World Junior Championship in Edmonton, Matt Boldy is back at Boston College and picking up right where he left off. He had an assist in each of his first two games back, helping the Eagles to a split with New Hampshire last weekend. In four games with B.C. this season, Boldy has two goals and four assists. The Eagles continue their push in Hockey East this weekend with a pair of games against Northeastern.