Photo Credits: Kiranomimus. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

Authored By: Adrian Rosati

Quinnesota could be in its final hurrah. While we wait to see what comes of this new Minnesota squad, the big news around the Wild is: will Quinn Hughes re-sign or not? Hughes said the focus is the team this year and that he’s sure the team and him will figure it out when it gets time to have those discussions. The Wild are coming off their first playoff series win since 2015 when they beat the Stars in 6. They eventually would lose in 5 to Colorado, but it was a step in the right direction.

Major Moves This Offseason:

Additions:

F Blake Coleman – Acquired from Calgary

D Olli Maata- Acquired from Calgary

G Calvin Pickard – Signed as a Free Agent

Subtractions:

F Mats Zucarello – Left as a Free Agent

F Marcus Johanson – Left as a Free Agent

F Vladimir Teresenko – Left as Free Agent

D Jake Middleton – Traded to Calgary

Evaluation of the Offseason

Blake Coleman is slated to fill in the second line left wing spot, per PuckPedia. He will be playing on a chippy line with Ryan Hartman and Bobby Brink.Coleman finished with 35 points with 20 of those being goals on a baaaaad Calgary Flames team. He only played 69 games last year due to an upper body injury he suffered in early January that had him sit out until near the end of February. Assuming no set backs, with a better team, he could produce some decent points for Minnesota.

Olli Maata is an experienced defenseman that Minnesota is looking to replace Jake Middleton with. For the defensive side of the Flames there’s a huge caveat when trying to analyze those numbers. The Flames are not good, they allowed way too many goals. Maata brings some stay at home mentality to the defensive position. He can exceed playing with an offensive defenseman on the second or third pair. Currently he’s projected to be the 3rd left defenseman playing with Zack Bogosian.He only played 43 games last season, starting in Utah and then traded to Calgary. He missed time due to an upper body injury but was also healthy scratched on Utah. His back half in Calgary looked impressive and it was promising for Minnesota to take a chance on him.

Middleton is obviously a big loss. He put up 16 points in 75 games. Known for his defensive positioning and physical play, he was a important part in Minnesota’s lineup. But, obviously with a $4.35 million dollar cap hit and 2 years remaining, they wanted to dump the cap space for future decisions. Minnesota has only $1.5 million in salary cap space, and that’s with Maata making less then Middleton.

Calvin Pickard is a depth option at net that most recently played in Edmonton. With Fillip Gustavsons injury history, this seems like mostly an injury protection problem more then anything else. It’s possible that he could get into a couple games should they try to get Kings ransom for either of their goalies. The one solid thing about the Wild is in the crease. With not a lot of cap available left for most teams, Minnesota has a trade chip should they want to use it. Pickard isn’t that special but I think Wild fans could be surprised if he gets hot and takes some of the workload from the other two. He didn’t have great numbers last year in 16 games, posting a 3.68 GAA and a 0.871 save percentage. Before that though his numbers showed a below 3 GAA and an average save percentage. He could easily bounce back to that with a more then 20 game to 30 game sample size.

First 10 Games

Minnesota opens their season in Nashvillle at 8:00 pm ET on October 1, 2026. Minnesota will start with 3 division games, and 5 eastern conference opponents in their first 10. 6 of which are either against playoff teams from last year, or projected playoff teams this year. Minnesota will be meeting their match. Nashville is a easy starting point but it’s a pretty balanced start overall. Minnesota is playing a bunch of Eastern Conference compared to a typical western start.

If you’re a neutral fan, Minnesota will be a good team to watch out of the gate. They will play a wide variety of teams, and it’ll be interesting to see if the new moves pan out or if there’s growing pains. I think they’ll beat Nashville to start. The Jets and Blues are the other divisional opponents and I think they could win those too. Vegas and Edmonton, their pacific opponents, will be tough tests and I could see them dropping both of those contests. When we get into the Atlantic, we have two guaranteed divisional spots and two in the hunt teams. I think they’re going to run into trouble with Florida and Tampa Bay, especially cause they’re on the road. Boston and Buffalo pose their own challenges, but I think they can win both of those. All in all that puts them at 6-4, which is a slow start for Minnesota standards, but a 1-2 win swing can put them into 2nd in the Central at worst to start the year.

My Prediction?

I have the Minnesota Wild finishing 3rd in the Atlantic. I think part of this is because Dallas and Colorado certainty didn’t get any worse. What puts them below Dallas for me is because they don’t have any edge over them and the impending Quinn Hughes extension may create a distraction. It’s still to early to say whether it affects the room, I guess time will tell.