I've spent the early chunk of this NHL season disproportionately watching underachieving Eastern Conference teams play listless hockey in front of crowds that seem barely engaged. So the Minnesota Wild's Tuesday night overtime win over the Canucks, against the backdrop of a lively lower bowl, was hockey heaven. Down 2-1 to start the third, a team that missed the playoffs last season and hasn't won a series since 2015 improved upon the league's best record with an equalizer from their big D-man and a last-minute game-winner from possibly the most exciting skater in the sport today. The intensity may not truly start until the new year, but this was as good as early December gets.
The first-period action started a little tentatively, but the Canucks used a power play to their advantage when a Quinn Hughes shot whizzed through traffic to get them on the board. The Wild found their response with a fast-break three-on-one goal off a turnover in the second, but Vancouver stole back momentum just before intermission when newly acquired scoring leader Jake DeBrusk tapped in a rebound.
Less than two minutes into the third, however, a second Jake drew the Wild level. Jake Middleton, recipient of a questionable long-term extension this offseason, intercepted an attempted Canucks clearance, set his skates, and fired a powerful wrister past Kevin Lankinen. The goal, Middleton's fifth on the year, already puts the 2014 seventh-round pick two shy of his previous high. He's a burly brawler who looks like a bouncer in an 1880s saloon, and he uses his frame primarily to block shots. He doesn't possess the grace or creativity to bring the puck up the ice, but he's making the most of an uptick in playing time, and the results—if not necessarily the process—have been a huge positive so far.
Only one Wild player has been on the ice for as many five-on-five goals as Middleton, and that's their star attraction: Kirill Kaprizov, now in his fifth season with club. After three straight 40-goal years, the 27-year-old winger is aiming for 50 this time out, and with his versatile talents and boundless energy it's easy to believe he can get there if he stays healthy. At the climax of a dizzy, harried three-on-three session, the Wild boomeranged off a Canucks two-on-zero to start their own rush, where Kaprizov beautifully finished a one-timer from Marco Rossi. That triumphant shout from the fans in the few seconds before the goal horn is so, so satisfying.
The Wild are really doing the absolute best they can in uncomfortable circumstances. Hampered by the cap as they spend one more season paying Zach Parise and Ryan Suter a combined $15 million, and already dreading Kaprizov's 2026 free agency, Minnesota is nonetheless getting solid work from older vets like the (at-least-partially) healed-up Jared Spurgeon and encouraging play from young up-and-comers like Matt Boldy and Brock Faber to win their games. They've also gotten a huge pick-me-up, maybe unsustainably, from currently dominant goaltender Filip Gustavsson, who in his short NHL career has so far alternated annually between first-class ace and unreliable trifle. Though they've been unable to pair Kaprizov with any marquee names, and the limits of this supporting cast were evident last year when the team just couldn't get its head back above water after sinking in the first six weeks, John Hynes's boys are proving that they're worthy of the rest of the league's attention. Eastern elites would kill to feel this good.
