Haunted by another early playoff exit, Wild start a new season with ‘a lot of sorting out’ to do

A pair of overtime defeats. Losing on home ice by a single goal. Blowing a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.

Marcus Foligno was haunted by all of it after the Wild were bounced from the playoffs last May by Vegas in six games, the ninth straight series the franchise has dropped.

“Stuff like that just give you nightmares,” said Foligno, the alternate captain who’s been around for six of those early exits.

But the Wild don’t want to dwell on a past they can’t change.

Instead, they’ll try to channel that frustration they felt over the summer into motivation now that they’re preparing for a new season: Players report for training camp Wednesday before the first practices get underway Thursday at Tria Rink in St. Paul.

“Hopefully we can make amends this year,” Foligno said.

Those lessons learned from last season will be familiar to almost everyone.

“You’re always hopeful to bring back the same guys,” captain Jared Spurgeon said, “and then add to make the team better.”

Marc-Andre Fleury retired, although the goaltender will appear in a preseason game with Pittsburgh after signing a professional tryout with the team with which he won three Stanley Cups during his Hall of Fame career. Frederick Gaudreau is gone after four seasons, and Declan Chisholm went to Washington. The Wild also didn’t re-sign Jon Merrill and Devin Shore or Gustav Nyquist and Justin Brazeau, their additions ahead of last season’s trade deadline.

Marcus Johansson returned on a team-friendly, one-year deal, and Marco Rossi’s contract stalemate was resolved in August with a three-year, $15 million pact.

The Wild did trade for veteran scorer Vladimir Tarasenko, who was primed for a fresh start after a down season with Detroit, and brought back defensive center Nico Sturm for a second stint; both players are two-time Stanley Cup champions.

The team’s other arrivals were for organizational depth, including Minnesotans Tyler Pitlick and Matt Kiersted.

Zeev Buium and David Jiricek aren’t newcomers to the Wild blue line — the 19-year-old Buium made his NHL debut in Game 1 of the playoffs after getting drafted in 2024, while Jiricek logged six games with the Wild following an in-season trade — but they’ll have to show they’re ready for full-time minutes.

That also applies to Danila Yurov and Liam Ohgren, the forwards the Wild drafted five picks apart in the 2022 first round.

Yurov, 21, signed a three-year, entry-level contract in May and left Russia, where he won a KHL championship and set a league record two seasons ago for the most points by a player 20 years old or younger. He’ll start at center in camp after participating in the Tom Kurvers Prospect Showcase last weekend.

“I thought the first game he got acclimated,” coach John Hynes said. “I thought [Sunday] he played a little bit more of a confident game. But he seems like a great kid. I know he’s eager to learn.”

Ohgren spent most of last season in the minors with Iowa of the American Hockey League but has 28 games of NHL experience.

In net, the Wild have rookie Jesper Wallstedt and veteran Cal Petersen behind No. 1 Filip Gustavsson.

As for that chunk of change that the Wild didn’t spend in the summer, they’d like to utilize it once the games get going and the trade market heats up.

How much flexibility they have will depend on how they construct their opening-night roster, but the Wild should have around a $5 million cushion.

“Everyone’s kind of anticipating something to go down when you kind of get the relief that we did,” Foligno said. “But I think it was smart on [management] just to sit back and not make knee-jerk reactions to things and just take it day by day. There’s a lot of hockey to be played, a lot of sorting out to be figured out.

“I think the way our team’s played last season, we’re a great team when we’re healthy. So, I’m sure there will be little additions along the way, but right now we’re really excited with the group that we have.”

Special teams will also be a priority after the power play converted just three times in the playoffs and the penalty kill was third-worst in the NHL.

Still, it makes sense why last season could be more of a catapult than a crater.

Not only were the Wild battling for the top spot in the league into mid-December, their ascent fueled by a fast start and dominance on the road, but they still played admirably while getting decimated by injuries and completing most of the second half without star winger Kirill Kaprizov. The first-half MVP frontrunner had a lower-body injury that ultimately required surgery, and he appeared in only 41 games before the playoffs.

Kaprizov went into the offseason feeling good, and he’s back for the Wild’s 25th season currently without a new contract in tow after the 28-year-old reportedly turned down an eight-year, $128 million offer that would have been the richest deal in NHL history.

Negotiations are ongoing and the longer they continue, the more the future will upstage the present regardless of what happens on the ice.