Zulgad: Who are these guys? John Hynes has Wild looking nothing like, well, the Wild
A year ago, the Wild got off to a terrible start in large part because they folded at the first sign of adversity. This season, the team has overcome nearly every challenge thrown at it.
The Wild’s 3-0 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night surprised no one who simply glanced at the score. The Wild are off to a fantastic 11-2-3 start, putting them second in the Central Division with 25 points, and Montreal sits last in the Atlantic with 12 points.
But those who follow the Wild knew this win was anything but routine. That’s because Wild teams of recent years likely would have departed Xcel Energy Center with a deflating defeat.
The Wild were given an excuse to fold when they lost center Joel Eriksson Ek and winger Mats Zuccarello to lower-body injuries in the first period, after entering the game without defenseman Jonas Brodin (upper body). This used to be a team looking for an excuse and then lamenting its bad luck in the silence of a losing dressing room.
Instead, these Wild rolled with 10 forwards and countless line combinations, got goals from Matt Boldy, Marco Rossi and Kirill Kaprizov into an empty net and a 19-save shutout from the suddenly Tretiak-like Filip Gustavsson.
This continued a pattern of the Wild not being, well, the Wild.
John Hynes’ hiring by general manager Bill Guerin late last November was met with justified skepticism. Dean Evason’s firing was the right move, given the Wild’s 5-10-4 start and a seven-game losing streak that preceded his dismissal, but Hynes’ immediate hiring felt like just another in a long line of a GM recycling a coach who also happened to be his buddy.
In this case, Hynes had worked for Guerin when the former coached the Pittsburgh Penguins’ minor league affiliate in Wilkes-Barre and the latter oversaw that team. Hynes’ first NHL coaching job came in New Jersey, where he spent four-plus years before being fired 26 games into the 2019-20 season. Hynes was hired by Nashville shortly after his dismissal, finished out that season and then led the Predators until being jettisoned after that team missed the playoffs in 2022-23.
Hynes’ unemployment didn’t last long as Guerin picked him to replace Evason and gave him a multi-year contract. A decision that was easy to question at the time, now looks like one of Guerin’s better moves.
The Wild missed the playoffs last season, going 34-24-5 under Hynes and 39-33-10 (87 points) overall, and few expected them to make it this season. Much of the personnel remained the same and money remained tight because of the nearly $15 million combined that Zach Parise and Ryan Suter count toward the salary cap as the penalty for their buyouts.
Hynes had other ideas and ran a tougher training camp that combined with his players’ embarrassment coming off of last season, has turned this into a very different team. The Wild started 2022-23 with such a lack of swagger that big-time personality and marginal hockey player Ryan Reaves was acquired from the Rangers to provide a spark.