2014-15 record: 46-28-8 (100 points)
Lost to Chicago in Conference Semi-finals
Captain: Mikko Koivu
The Minnesota Wild had to fight their way just to make the playoffs for the second straight season, and had mid-season acquisition Devan Dubnyk not played the role of Superman, the Wild would have been a rather expensive disaster sitting at home instead of making the Conference semi-finals. With largely the same lineup thanks to salary cap constraints, the Wild will have to make do in order to make the playoffs in an increasingly tough Central Division
Despite finishing in the top half of the league on offense, only Zach Parise lived up to expectations consistently while the other scorers either had stretches of inconsistency (Nino Niederreiter and Jason Zucker) or fell below expectations (Thomas Vanek and Jason Pominville). Consistent production from key players plus Charlie Coyle and Mikael Granlund would be nice. Defensively, the Wild are as good any of the elite teams in the league, having finished sixth. Dubnyk provided stable goaltending that had struggled amongst Niklas Backstrom, who is still in Minnesota despite being a $4 million third string option, Darcy Kuemper, and John Curry. Expecting Dubnyk to play 38 straight games again would be a folly, so it will be likely up to Kuemper to be the player he was late in 2013-14.
Great defense did translate to a great penalty kill, and that figures to be the case once again while the power play was just awful, and was proven to be a downfall in their loss to Chicago in the playoffs.
Prediction: 6th in the Central Division
The Wild return basically the same team as last year. That would be great...except that just about every other team in the division improved. For the Wild to make the playoffs this season, they will have to be more consistent from beginning to end.
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