Analysis: At season’s midway point, here’s what we’ve learned about the Wild

SAN JOSE, CALIF. — The fresh start of a new year looked as if it couldn’t arrive fast enough for the Wild back on Halloween.

But they didn’t wait to start working on their resolutions.

After posting just three wins in their first 12 games, the Wild went pointless in only four of their next 29 to flip their trajectory — a dizzying transformation to have from have-not bolstered by the biggest trade in franchise history.

A save as impressive as that will be tough to top as the Wild’s calling card, but they aren’t satisfied with what they’ve done halfway through the season: The Wild are focused on what they still can accomplish.

“The mentality now is we need to do more,” alternate captain Marcus Foligno said. “We need to keep rising. It’s not: ‘Hey, good job. We got out of the basement.’

“We gotta keep raising our game and doing everything perfect.”

Already, the Wild are among the best.

NHL standings

The Wild are 24-10-7 but an impeccable 21-4-4 since they finished that awful October 3-6-3, and there is plenty of praise to go around.

Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy are the only teammates in the top seven in the NHL in goal scoring, with Kaprizov at 23 and Boldy a team-high 25. The duo in net is also dynamic, as the combination of Filip Gustavsson’s experience and rookie Jesper Wallstedt’s eagerness has clicked — to the tune of Wallstedt leading the league in save percentage (.928) and shutouts (four) while Gustavsson has a 1.81 goals-against average during a 9-1-2 run since mid-November.

Marcus Johansson is having a renaissance season alongside Joel Eriksson Ek and Boldy, the trio forming one of the strongest matchup lines in the NHL. Yakov Trenin is also rejuvenated after a down year, Danila Yurov has stepped in as No. 1 center as a rookie from Russia, and 38-year-old Mats Zuccarello looks primed for another contract.

Captain Jared Spurgeon and Jonas Brodin have also turned back the clock on defense, and Brock Faber is on the precipice of another breakout next to new partner Quinn Hughes.

“We brought in a guy like Quinn Hughes for a reason, and the bar needs to keep raising here,” Foligno said. “That’s the mentality. We don’t want to be a team that just gets in. Realistic or not, you’re trying to aim to be first in your division, first in your conference.

“That’s the mentality in this room.”

But the Wild also have reason not to be complacent because they do have areas to improve.

Their last game proved as much, the 4-3 shootout loss at San Jose on New Year’s Eve an appropriate send-off for the first half of the season since it was a reminder of what the Wild are good at while also showing what they should strive for the rest of the way.

They took charge early because of their quick transitions, which are smoother because of Hughes, and the Wild can be a handful down low when they play there.

“We outplayed them in the first period,” defenseman Jake Middleton said, “and if we can just continue to do that for a full 60 [minutes], really put together a full 60 night in and night out — we do a good job of that, I think, for the most part on most nights — but if we can really burn their boats when we get ahead, that’d be ideal.”

To coach John Hynes, the Wild’s structure and tactical identity are locked in.

Sure, the power play can get sharper (it has scored just twice in the last 15 chances but is top 10 overall at 22.6%) and faceoffs (28th at 46.6%) remain a work in progress. But it’s the finer details, like on-the-fly corrections or snuffing out other teams’ comebacks, that the Wild can still hone.

“There’s intricacies in the game, the game within the game, and the moxie you need to play with,” Hynes said.

No matter what happens, the Wild should be proud of their turnaround.