After impressive rookie season, Wild winger Matt Boldy faces life without Fiala

Jordan Greenway tried to persuade Wild teammate Matt Boldy to move with him.

The two were in the same apartment last season after Greenway offered his extra bedroom in January when Boldy was called up, then learned he'd be staying with the team. But they're no longer roommates.

"He's too cool for me now," Greenway said.

Or, as Boldy put it, he wasn't ready to follow Greenway to the suburbs.

So, the second-year winger relocated to an apartment in Minneapolis, bringing with him the belongings he had from when he was in the minors in Iowa and shopping online for décor, like wall art off Etsy.

"It's pretty minimalistic," the 21-year-old said. "It's nice. Simple colors. Nothing crazy."

Just as he's breaking out on his own away from the rink, Boldy is facing a similar transition on the ice.

He had a seamless arrival to the NHL after getting promoted, helping the Wild immediately and clicking almost as quickly with linemate Kevin Fiala, a connection that boosted the offense.

But that collab was short-lived.

Fiala is gone, jettisoned to Los Angeles in a cap-crunch trade, and that means Boldy's return will spotlight him as an individual after he thrived in a duo.

"Kevin's a great player, and of course we had good chemistry," said Frederick Gaudreau, who centered Boldy and Fiala. "But Bolds doesn't need all the best players around him to be successful.

"I have 100 percent trust in his ability. He doesn't need anyone else."

How Boldy dreamed he'd become an NHLer and what actually happened are completely different.

The winger suffered a broken ankle in a preseason game last year, an injury that ended his bid to make the team out of training camp and shelved him for six weeks.

Once he recovered and kicked off his season in the American Hockey League, Boldy logged just a handful of games before he sprained his other ankle and was out of commission again.

"It wasn't what I expected," Boldy said, "[but] it would all come together."

In storybook fashion, no less.

With the Wild hamstrung by their own rash of injuries, the team beckoned Boldy, and the Massachusetts native made his debut Jan. 6 in front of family and friends at Boston, delivering the decisive goal in a 3-2 win.

"It was perfect," said Boldy, a former Boston College standout drafted 12th overall by the Wild in 2019.

Two games later, Boldy was lining up with Fiala and Gaudreau.

Barely seven minutes after the opening faceoff, Boldy set up Fiala for a goal. In the third period, Boldy scored . Then he assisted on another Fiala tally the next game.

The rest is history.

"Offensive guys have that 'want' to just score," Boldy said. "That's their No. 1 concern out of everything. Obviously, you gotta play defense. But I think playing with those two it's we're going out there to score goals. We're not going out there just to survive."

In 47 games with the Wild, Boldy had 15 goals and 24 assists for 39 points, the second-highest-scoring rookie in the NHL since he joined the league. His 10-game point streak set a franchise record for longest by a Wild rookie.

"It seemed like everything was so natural for him, and you don't see that often," Gaudreau said. "Guys need a lot of time to figure stuff out. He didn't need that much time."

Fiala, meanwhile, recorded more than 70% of his career-high 33 goals and 85 points after Boldy teamed up with him. Boldy assisted on 10 of Fiala's goals, and Fiala factored into nine of Boldy's.

As for the origin of their chemistry, Boldy felt the line really took off once he'd shown he could create opportunities and therefore had Fiala's confidence.

"You gotta earn that trust from him that he knows that if he gives it to you, something good can happen for him, too," Boldy said. "Once we were able to get through that and earn his trust and you kind of start to notice he's giving it to you more, even if he has space, I think that's when things started going well for us."

Over the last month of the regular season, Fiala was one of the most dominant players in the NHL, establishing a team record with five assists in a game and posting his second double-digit point streak.

But the team ultimately couldn't afford to re-sign him, not with most of the lineup already under contract and the rising costs of the Zach Parise and Ryan Suter buyouts eating up more of the budget. Fiala was dealt in June to the Kings, who gave him a lavish seven-year, $55.125 million deal.

"I think a lot of us kind of saw it coming with just the money that needed to go his way and what we had going," Boldy said. "But it's sad to see guys like that go."

They had developed a friendship, with Fiala looking out for Boldy and taking him to dinner on the road.

Boldy texted Fiala after the trade, and Fiala's message back was, "Keep doing what you're doing."

While the Wild didn't bring in a comparable replacement for Fiala, they are poised to get a full season of Boldy: The player who worked best with Fiala could help camouflage his absence, the subtext behind Boldy improving from his rookie year.

"I don't really see it as pressure," said Boldy, who's expected to start the season on Thursday vs. the New York Rangers at Xcel Energy Center alongside Gaudreau and newcomer Sam Steel. "I think it's more like you got a bigger chance to have a bigger impact, which is what I think every hockey player wants. You want to have as much of an impact as you can, be a guy people look to to score goals in big moments or have a bigger impact in games or let's give the puck to this guy, something good's going to happen.

"That's always been my mentality."

Not on Boldy's mind is the question of how he'll fare without Fiala.

"I played one year with Kevin," Boldy said. "I've played 18 years of hockey with tons of different players. I don't really view it that way or have to worry that I don't have Kevin like, wow, what am I going to do? That's not my thought process."

Boldy has always had that versatility to his game, and he doesn't see his style changing. What's also staying the same is his attitude, the determination to capitalize on every opportunity to make a difference.

"I have a lot of confidence in myself," Boldy said. "It might not externally be showing, but my 'want' to be good I think is where a lot of it comes from. There's not really a bone in me that likes mediocracy or just going out there to just go for a skate or get through a game.

"If you're there, you might as well do it."