Neal: Let’s forget about 2025. Here’s who I’m watching in Minnesota sports in 2026.

After witnessing flops across the Minnesota sports scene over the past 12 months, good riddance, 2025.

This new year can’t be any worse.

Right?

There were high hopes for the Wolves, Twins, Lynx and Vikings. They all disappointed. The Lynx conked out in the WNBA semifinals, and the Wolves threw a rod in the NBA’s Western Conference finals.

The Twins were division favorites but played so poorly that they went Dracarys on their roster at the trade deadline.

And we were fools for thinking the Vikings could win while developing a quarterback who had lost a year of development in 2024.

My team to watch in 2025, the Gophers men’s hockey team, was loaded with high NHL draft picks last season, but their title drought continued into a 23rd year. That’s unacceptable in the State of Hockey.

Thank heavens for the Frost, who repeated as PWHL champs.

New year, new hope for Minnesota sports. Let’s turn the page.

The Wolves are tasked with finding ways to slay the Thunder dragon. The Frost eye a three-peat. The Wild aren’t ready to contend for a Stanley Cup just yet, but they could be equipped to actually win a playoff series for the first time since 2015. The Lynx? Who knows what their roster will look like when the acrimony between players and the league office ends and a new collective bargaining agreement is reached?

There will be plenty of opportunities for an individual or team to capture gold or hoist a trophy. The Winter Olympics take place in February in Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. There will be around 25 Minnesotans on Team USA who could come home with medals. The Special Olympics are in Minnesota in June, which will be a stage for many touching stories.

As we head into a new year, I picked one athlete, one team and one executive to watch in 2026.

“She is a rock star,” the Minnesota Frost and Team USA veteran said when Diggins’ name came up. “I think it was one of the greatest Olympic calls.

“Here! Comes! Diggins!”

Coyne’s voice rose as she repeated broadcaster Chad Salmela’s call of Diggins’ memorable and historic come-from-behind win in the 2018 Pyeongchang Games that gave the U.S. its first gold medal in cross country skiing.

Fans and fellow Olympians alike have been awestruck by the St. Paul-born, Afton-raised Diggins, one of Minnesota’s greatest athletes.

It’s not only because of her success, and we’re talking about an enormous amount of success. A gold, a silver and a bronze medal in Olympic competition. Two gold, three silver and two bronze medals in the World Championships. Three Tour de Ski titles and, at age 34, Diggins is leading the year’s event after three stages, winning the 5-kilometer sprint on Wednesday, Dec. 31. Three overall World Cup titles and she leads the standings again, placing first in an event Dec. 6 in Trondheim, Norway, for her 30th career win on the circuit.

She is in top form as she heads for the Winter Olympics, which will be her fourth and last. Diggins has announced she will retire at the end of the 2025-26 season. Many athletes decline to take that path, preferring to wait until a season is over to make a decision. Diggins wanted company.

“I wanted to announce this at the start of the season, to bring people in with me so I could say thank you,” Diggins said. “I left [an event in] Davos, and it was the last time I was going to wear a race bib there. And it’s the same people who are volunteering, who are organizing the race, all these people working super-hard to make it happen, and I’ve been there for 15 years, and it was just really cool to say thank you, you know? They know it’s my last time.

“Like in Ruka at our World Cup opener in Finland, there was this group of Finnish men who I didn’t even know, but they were chanting, ‘Last time.’”

Diggins revealed this during a recent Zoom interview from Passo Lavaze, Italy, where she was enjoying a holiday break. This interviewer was forced to be his sharpest at 6:45 a.m. to hold up his end of the bargain.

Diggins’ idea of a break includes two to three hours of training a day. My regimen consists of maneuvering around furniture on the way to the coffee pot.

The Tour de Ski ends Sunday, Jan. 4. Diggins will compete in a few World Cup events, mixed in with some high-altitude training, before the cross-country skiing program at the Olympics begins Feb. 7.

So here comes Diggins.

One. Last. Time.

The Minnesota Frost are the only champion the Professional Women’s Hockey League has ever known in its two full seasons of existence.

They must have a bullseye on them, right, Taylor Heise?

“And other people are searching for it. So I’d rather be the one to have it and to realize how cool it is. And that’s why you work as hard as you do in practice and in games.”

Minnesota is the state where women’s sports teams are getting it done. Two banners hang from the rafters of Grand Casino Arena, and the Wild have nothing to do with them.

Minnesota could be home to a three-peat this season. But Frost forward Kelly Pannek isn’t comfortable with the three-peat moniker because the team lost players in the expansion draft, notably fantastic defenders Sophie Jacques and Claire Thompson.

The core remains a strong one, though: Pannek, Heise, Kendall Coyne Schofield, Grace Zumwinkle and Britta Curl-Salemme. Lee Stecklein is one of the most savvy defenders in the league. Nicole Hensley and Maddie Rooney are a strong goaltending tandem. And each original six team lost four players in the expansion draft. Everyone took a hit.

And there are two more teams — Seattle and Vancouver — for the Frost to conquer on the way to a third consecutive championship.

An Olympic gold medal would go nicely with another Walter Cup title. Team USA will be named on Friday, Jan. 2, but six Frost players took part in the recently completed Rivalry Series against Team Canada. Team USA, which lost to Canada in the gold medal game in Beijing in 2022, swept the four-game series and outscored their neighbors 24-7.

Yup, 2026 could be a haul of a year for Frost players. They are the standard in the PWHL and will form the spine of Team USA’s gold medal pursuit.

Vikings General Manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah needs to have a big 2026.

This will be Year 5 of the Adofo-Mensah experience. It’s been topsy-turvy, as the Vikings are playing out a season in which they will miss the playoffs after winning 14 games a year ago with a roster that is among the most expensive in the league. This coming after the Wilf family signed Adofo-Mensah to a multiyear contract extension in May.

Quite a way to repay someone for their investment in you.

Good teams overcome injuries. Not all moves pay off. But Adofo-Mensah has had too many misses on his watch.

Eric Wilson was a great offseason signing, but more was expected from defensive tackles Javon Hargrave and Jonathan Allen. The Vikings should have passed on cornerback Isaiah Rodgers and kept Nahshon Wright, who has been a disruptor in the Bears secondary. Will Fries was a solid offensive line pickup. But center Ryan Kelly suffered three concussions and will have to assess his career in the offseason. And there was the mess at backup quarterback.

Adofo-Mensah has been forced into the free-agent market to make up for his missed swings in the draft. His first pick, Lewis Cine in 2022, is no longer in the NFL. He was drafted after the Vikings traded down from the 12th pick with division rival Detroit. Instead of staying put and taking Kyle Hamilton, they helped Detroit get Jameson Williams, who has had consecutive 1,000-yard receiving seasons.

The Vikings’ first five picks from that first draft are no longer on the roster.

Dallas Turner, taken before the Rams picked Jared Verse, is getting better but is no Verse. Offensively, the Vikings hit on Jordan Addison, Jalen Nailor has played his way into a nice contract, and offensive lineman Donovan Jackson looks like a keeper. Will Reichard was an Adofo-Mensah pick, too. But can he draft more defensive players who can actually play?

His forays into free agency have been a mixed bag. While his 2025 class has largely underperformed, his 2024 class that included Jonathan Greenard, Blake Cashman and Andrew Van Ginkel contributed significantly to the Vikings’ success.

And if J.J. McCarthy isn’t the answer under center, should Adofo-Mensah get to draft another QB?

It is clear that Adofo-Mensah needs a complete offseason. He can start by extending Nailor. There are needs at cornerback, safety, linebacker and center.

Adofo-Mensah doesn’t need to turn into the Rams’ Les Snead or the Eagles’ Howie Roseman — although it wouldn’t hurt. But through four seasons we don’t know what his strengths are.

With a pivotal offseason approaching, more is required of him.

Drake Lindsey, Gophers football: Player retention is increasingly important as free agency has hit college football. Lindsey showed promise in his first year as a starter, and his return provided Gophers coach P.J. Fleck a selling point to offensive recruits. Lindsey can take the program to new heights.

Abbey Murphy, Gophers women’s hockey: During Team USA’s drubbing of Canada in the recent Rivalry Series, Lake City’s Taylor Heise led the team in points. But Murphy, a current Gopher, led the team in goals. Enjoy this unique player — she racks up goals as well as penalty minutes — during the Olympics and during the final games of her career at the U.

Royce Lewis, Twins: It’s a lot to ask of one person, but Lewis needs to help save the franchise after a disastrous 70-92 season, a fire sale at the trade deadline and growing frustration with ownership. Lewis dealt with a severe bout of failure last season. A return to his Mr. Grand Slam days would be a boost for a franchise that desperately needs something good to happen.