DENVER — The Minnesota Wild’s season ending at the hands of the mighty Colorado Avalanche is nothing to be ashamed of.
Well, except for the way they lost — a Game 5 collapse that preceded the humbling handshake line.
The Avalanche are the class of the NHL, the Presidents’ Trophy winners. And the idea that Minnesota would blow through the Dallas Stars and the Avalanche in back-to-back rounds was always — well — ambitious, especially this round without Joel Eriksson Ek and Jonas Brodin.
Regardless of that, coming out on top against top teams and getting deeper than the second round is still the benchmark for the Wild.
As president of hockey operations and general manager Bill Guerin said after the Quinn Hughes blockbuster acquisition in mid-December, this team is playing for a Stanley Cup now. They’re in more of a “win-now” phase than they ever have been. They need to be, especially if they want to keep Hughes.
The fact is, the Wild had never really been a serious contender until this season, with Hughes, Kirill Kaprizov, Matt Boldy and Brock Faber giving them the kind of star power many teams would envy.
The problem is: It was still not good enough. The gentleman’s sweep handed to them by Colorado was the latest example.
The most talented team the Wild have ever assembled was still light years behind the class of the Western Conference.
Exhibit A: Fourth-liner Michael McCarron was the team’s No. 2 center in Wednesday’s must-win Game 5 at Ball Arena, and Ryan Hartman was the No. 1.
Exhibit B: After being relegated to the third pairing earlier in the series, defenseman Jake Middleton played 21 minutes, 55 seconds in Game 5 and was on the ice for the final three goals of Wednesday’s 4-3 loss and 13 in the series. How was he the best option in those critical moments?
Exhibit C: Kaprizov and Boldy largely disappeared in the two biggest games of the series and played hot potato with the puck on what could have been the game-winning two-on-one chance in overtime. Superstars call “game.” They don’t let someone else take it. Nathan MacKinnon certainly didn’t no-show during a terrific, terrorizing performance. His all-world shot forced OT in Game 5.
Exhibit D: The lack of poise by veterans with the season on the line. Hartman’s icing two strides from the red line, leading to Colorado cutting the deficit to 3-2. Turnovers by Middleton and Marcus Foligno, preceding MacKinnon’s tying goal. Middleton chasing Martin Necas behind the net and losing him before Brett Kulak’s overtime winner.
You can lament all you want about the injuries to Eriksson Ek and Brodin and how they played a factor, and they certainly did. Eriksson Ek is the team’s top shutdown, two-way center, and Brodin is the kind of guy who can slow down even the likes of MacKinnon.
They would have been on the ice during many of these critical situations throughout the series in which the Avs got the better of Minnesota.
But every team goes through injuries, and the Wild’s depth was exposed in this series by the Avalanche. That’s the task for Guerin going forward this summer, with plans of another big swing to get over the next hump.
Look, Guerin made a calculated risk at the trade deadline. Everyone in the hockey world knew the Wild needed another top-six center. It’s been that case for years. But instead of paying the hefty price for Vincent Trocheck (who ended up not being traded by the New York Rangers), Guerin — for once — went the patient route, preferring to keep more of his few trade assets for a potential summer swing at a top-line center like an Auston Matthews or a Robert Thomas, or a play-driving, hard-nosed, top-six winger like Hughes’ childhood friend Brady Tkachuk.
The Wild rolled the dice on this team having enough. Guerin bet on this group, and that’s admirable. And none of us knew Eriksson Ek would get hurt in such a fluky way — losing an edge and sliding right-foot-first into the boards in Game 6 against the Stars, when the Wild finally clinched a second-round berth for the first time in a decade.
But the Wild have long been an Eriksson Ek playoff injury away from disaster. Once again, it proved to be a death knell, because the Wild left themselves deficient at center after trading Marco Rossi earlier this season.
The Wild weren’t going to beat Colorado — the team with the best center depth in the NHL — with Hartman, McCarron and rookie Danila Yurov as their top three centers. Deadline additions such as McCarron and Nick Foligno were helpful, but they’re bottom-six guys.
And the penalty kill — a perennial playoff problem — killed the Wild for the umpteenth straight playoffs, even though it was the league’s best unit from the Olympic break through the end of the regular season.
This was a very good Wild team. A very fun one to watch. It went up against the league’s best and was able to beat them during the regular season. The emotional first-round series victory over the Stars was understandably celebrated and probably took its toll on them in the second round, coming in on short rest and with little time to adjust while Colorado was ready to roll after an easy sweep over the Los Angeles Kings.
The core that’s eaten a lot of crow for its first-round flounders should feel it took a step. But for the future to continue to be bright for an organization that has traded away tons of prospects and picks to get to this point, the Wild are going to need a big summer.
So, how does Guerin upgrade this roster, especially with a brutal unrestricted-free-agent class coming out on July 1?
You can’t just roll this same group back. Marcus Johansson is a solid 40-point regular-season player, especially at $800,000, but Boldy needs a better, higher-scoring second-line winger to play with. And this is the second postseason in a row in which Middleton has made back-breaking mistakes on the back end. Is it time to cut ties with Brodin, who always seems to be unavailable at the worst possible times?
Do you come back with 38-year-old Mats Zuccarello, or is it time to find a younger top-flight winger? After all, at some point, Kaprizov has to create chemistry with somebody other than Zuccarello.
Can they find a more prolific, consistent third-line winger than Vladimir Tarasenko?
And what would be enough to convince Hughes that this is the place he can chase a Cup for at least the next three or four years?
This was Guerin’s other calculated risk. He went for it and unloaded his prospect cupboard to land Hughes. Not many GMs would have given up Zeev Buium and Rossi, plus a first and Liam Ohgren without any promise of an extension. But gunslinging Guerin did, and he got his flowers for it, being named a GM of the Year finalist. It did help put them over the top in the first round. Who will forget Hughes’ dominating performance in the clinching Game 6?
Hughes has said he loves it in Minnesota. The team. The people. The core of stars they’re building around. His stud defensive partner Faber. It wouldn’t be a surprise if Hughes signs an extension for at least three years this summer, which would line him up for when his brother Jack is a UFA.
But does Hughes, the biggest hockey nerd we know, feel this Wild team can get through Dallas and Colorado, who aren’t going anywhere anytime soon — not to mention the on-the-upswing Utah Mammoth and Anaheim Ducks?
That’ll be the deciding factor for him.
Guerin’s move looks brilliant if Hughes stays. If he doesn’t, it’s even worse than the haul Guerin gave up for David Jiriicek (first-, second-, third- and fourth-round picks, plus Daemon Hunt, who the Wild got back via waivers), only to parlay him at the trade deadline for Bobby Brink, a pending restricted free agent who was a healthy scratch for the entire Avalanche series.
Another reason this summer will be fascinating: The Wild saw Jesper Wallstedt show why he was considered their goalie of the future in the playoffs, but they would likely have to part with him if they want to put together a trade package for a true No. 1 center.
That’ll put a lot on the Filip Gustavsson, who has been a good enough goalie to earn a five-year, $34 million extension from the Wild but not good enough to be trusted with the net for the playoffs.
There probably won’t be a huge overhaul of the rest of the roster, though there should be hard decisions and conversations about pending UFAs like Johansson, oft-injured Zach Bogosian, Tarasenko, McCarron and Nick Foligno. Zuccarello seems likely to come back, assuming he doesn’t retire. McCarron, as good as he was after getting acquired for a second-rounder at the deadline, has a chance at a big payday elsewhere.
And is it time to consider trading a Marcus Foligno, Middleton, Hartman or Jared Spurgeon?
There’s one other issue: Kaprizov. He signed by far the richest deal in NHL history in the fall, then was a non-factor for a good part of the Avalanche series (minus a strong Game 3), going the last 138 minutes with one shot on goal.
It’ll be challenging for Guerin to keep adding to this roster and finding Kaprizov help when he just squeezed the Wild for every last cent in negotiating — unlike the compromises stars Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel, Kyle Connor and Adrian Kempe made with their teams last fall.
Sorry, when you’re almost 30 and are now the most expensive player in league history, it comes with mountains of pressure and certainly expectations.
The Wild can see what they have in prospects such as Hunter Haight and Charlie Stramel. That is, if they’re not dangled in a blockbuster this summer along with Yurov and/or Wallstedt.
There aren’t many trade chips left beyond them.
So a lot of the same group you saw in the handshake line on Wednesday night at Ball Arena — the Folignos, Spurgeon, Boldy, Kaprizov, Hughes — will likely be the core the Wild leans on next season. Eriksson Ek and Brodin, helplessly watching back in the Twin Cities, showed how valuable they were in their absences this series — but that also reinforced how hard it is to rely on their availability.
As good as the Avalanche are, this would have been a winnable series if the Wild came in healthy and made a few key adjustments, and that is what will probably haunt them all summer. Because if Minnesota had beaten Colorado, it certainly could have hung with the Vegas Golden Knights or Anaheim Ducks. The Wild have beaten the Ducks in 21 of the last 22 meetings.
That’ll be the worst part of this offseason — wondering what could have been had they gotten past Colorado.
Hynes made the curious decision to switch from Wallstedt to Gustavsson for Game 2, and that move flopped. But the series was lost in Game 4, when the Wild had “brain fog” and inexplicably didn’t come ready to play.
The Avalanche are a team with championship pedigree. They know what it takes to go on deep playoff runs. They’re what the Wild want to be.
Minnesota hasn’t figured out how to get there yet. But a big offseason could get the Wild there. It sure feels like they were close.
