The Minnesota Wild’s season is right around the corner now that it’s officially September, and that means training camp is just a few weeks away, and fans will get to see their favorite players hit the ice once again. With a new season coming, there are new milestones that could be hit, and after last season, everyone is going to be anxious for more.
Everyone had their eyes on Marc-André Fleury last season, but now that he’s retired, all eyes will be back on Kirill Kaprizov and whether he can bounce back from his injury-ridden season that derailed his Hart Trophy hopes. In this article, we’ll look at what major milestones could be reached this season and by whom, starting with their goaltender.
Gustavsson Starts 200 Games
It’s time for the Wild’s Filip Gustavsson to truly shine as he won’t be sharing the limelight with Fleury anymore. He doesn’t have any huge milestones coming up just yet, but he will likely hit 200 games played in his career. Not anything big, but still a milestone nonetheless, and that’s not the only one he could hit.
The other milestone Gustavsson should hit is 100 wins in his career. He’s at 83 currently, which means 17 more, and that should be an easy number for him to accomplish after having 31 last season and 20 the season before that. Hopefully Gustavsson can finish the season with a lot more than 17 wins and with that, quite a bit more than 100 career wins as well.
Faber & Middleton Could Hit 100 Points in Career
Brock Faber has proven his worth each season he’s played, and while he hit a bit of a bump in his second full season, he was still an impact player. He’s shown he can score goals despite his main priority being defense, and he blocks everything that comes his way. He’s capable on both the power play and penalty kill, but the team has tried to keep him from having to pull double duty too much like he did in his first season.
This coming season, he’ll want to bounce back from his drop in points last season, which means hitting at least 30 points, which he can do. If he hits those 30 points, he’ll easily surpass 100 points in his career. He already has 76 points over two full seasons, and while he did drop off slightly in last season, he did score more goals, just tallied fewer assists. Faber will likely be one of many team milestones by the end of the season.
Faber’s teammate and sometimes defensive partner, Jake Middleton, also has the chance to hit 100 points in his career. He’s been playing for quite a bit longer than Faber, but his points started to pick up when he joined the Wild. He’ll likely hit the 100-point mark with an assist rather than a goal because he typically registers more assists than goals in a season and has throughout his career.
Brock Faber, Minnesota Wild (Amy Irvin / The Hockey Writers)
He’s currently at 78 points, so he only needs 22 to make it to 100, and he hasn’t hit below the 20-point mark the last two seasons. It would be great to see two of the Wild’s defensemen hit the 100-point mark in their careers, not only for the individual accolades, but it also means they contributed at least 46 points combined, and hopefully many more.
Spurgeon, Bogosian & Brodin Have Milestones in Reach
Jared Spurgeon and Zach Bogosian will be up first as they both have the chance to hit 1,000 games played in their respective careers. However, it’s not going to be as easy as it could be for other players in the league. Spurgeon will have the chance to play in all 82 games of the season because he’s permanently on their roster; however, for him, it’s the injury issues that could get in the way of his milestone and he needs 67 games to do it. Bogosian could have trouble hitting the milestone as well because he may be the seventh defenseman and might not be on the roster enough to get the 71 games he needs.
The next milestone Spurgeon doesn’t need a whole season to accomplish, and that is one lone assist to earn him 300 assists in his career. He’s at 299, and he had 25 assists in 66 games played last season, so he should be able to hit 300. His teammate, Jonas Brodin, can also hit the number 300 this season, but in total points for his career, not assists. However, just like Spurgeon, he needs his health to stay on his side; to hit that number, he needs to tally a career-high 40 assists, and that could be difficult when he has to miss the start of the season due to surgery recovery.
Wild Forwards Hit Marks
A number of Wild forwards will hit minor milestones this season, like a certain number of assists or goals that are important but not hugely significant in terms of big statistics. Only two of them will hit games played milestones as the only major mark they’ll hit this season, and that is Marcus Foligno with the possibility to hit 900 games played in his career, and Marcus Johansson has the chance to hit 1,000 games played.
Johansson should easily hit this mark as he just needs to play 17 games to make it happen. Foligno needs to play 25 games this season to make it to 900, and that seems pretty likely as long as he stays healthy. The other two players that could hit game milestones this season, along with another mark, are Joel Eriksson Ek, who could reach 600 games played in his career, but he could also reach 300 career points. He’s currently at 299 points, and it’s safe to say he’ll easily surpass that mark.
The other player is Matt Boldy, who has the chance to hit 300 games played. He needs to play 15 games to hit 300. The other stat he could reach is also 300 career points, like Eriksson Ek; he is 56 points away, so he has a bit of a hill to climb, but with the way he normally registers points, it shouldn’t be too big a problem.
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The final two players who could hit significant milestones this season are Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello. Kaprizov has the chance to hit 200 career goals and 400 career points; he can easily reach both if he stays healthy. He just needs 15 goals and 14 overall points to hit both marks, both well within his normal scoring abilities. That leaves Zuccarello, who has the chance to hit 700 career points. This should also be fairly easy to attain as he just needs 10 points to make it to that 700, and like Kaprizov, he can usually record those points pretty easily.
As the season begins, some of these milestones should get checked off the list as they’re within reach. Some will take longer throughout the season, but it’ll be fun to see if all of these players can hit those marks and possibly exceed them as they work to win games.
