ST. PAUL, Minn. — It’s mid-April, so now the ice shrinks.
Space tightens. Tempers flare. Bodies bang. And NHL players with the guts to go to high-traffic areas matter more.
That’s why Ryan Hartman tends to flourish come playoff time. It’s also why he ended the season on such a roll for the Minnesota Wild, scoring seven goals and 12 points in his final nine games to cap a bounce-back 23-goal season.
Hartman can taste the postseason. Smell the postseason.
“I’m ready to face Dallas,” Hartman said last week without the slightest of grins.
Hartman, who will be the Wild’s first-line center between Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello, is the epitome of a playoff player.
As Wild boss Bill Guerin says, “Hartzy comes to the rink in a bad mood.”
“The snarl is always there,” Guerin said during a recent conversation with The Athletic. “Hartzy needs something to play for. When the stakes get higher, he gets better. Like, a Tuesday game in October or November … he’s fine, and he’s going to be a good player. But he likes the big stakes.”
Look back at Hartman’s five previous postseasons with the Wild, and as Guerin noted, he’s routinely been one of Minnesota’s most impactful players.
Last year, he was quickly promoted in the first round against the Vegas Golden Knights, scored 6 points in six games and, frankly, would have had one of the biggest goals in Wild playoff history had his late tiebreaking goal in Game 5 not been erased by Gustav Nyquist being deemed offside via a coach’s challenge.
Hartman had 5 points in five games against the Dallas Stars in 2023, including the double-overtime winner in Game 1, despite playing with a significant knee injury and barely being able to walk. He had five assists in six games against the St. Louis Blues in 2022 and two goals against the Golden Knights in 2021, and he was a physical force against the Vancouver Canucks in the 2020 bubble, especially in Game 1.
“I’m not saying I don’t put every bit of effort into every game, but it just feels like every game in the playoffs is Game 7,” Hartman said. “I love that feeling. It feels like you’re not thinking about anything else. You’re not thinking, like, ‘I’ve got to travel here tomorrow,’ and we’re on a four-day road trip and you’ve got to worry about this. In the playoffs, you focus on one series and one game at a time and you feel like maybe it slows things down mentally and you can just give it your all each and every game.”
Hartman plays angry enough to keep his opponents uncomfortable. There’s a reason he led the Wild with 32 penalties drawn this season.
But he swears he isn’t always in a bad mood.
“It’s definitely a game face,” Hartman said. “I try to keep it pretty light up until game time. I’m not too serious, but maybe I could use an extra 30 minutes with nap time or something. But playoff hockey is the best time of year. Everyone’s at their best. It’s sure my favorite time of the year.”
What Hartman has strived for his entire career, though, is to reach that edge without catapulting over it. He’ll have to toe that line in the playoffs.
The Wild have been one of the league’s most disciplined teams this season, being shorthanded the third-fewest times in the West (213). Dallas has the league’s second-best power play (just ahead of the No. 3-ranked Wild) and scored nine power-play goals against Minnesota in their 2023 playoff series.
Hartman has been largely disciplined this season after earning his fifth career suspension last year — a 10-gamer that was reduced to eight on appeal — after driving Tim Stützle’s face into the ice off a faceoff. It cost him nearly $400,000 in forfeited salary and led to a big heart-to-heart, wake-up call conversation with Guerin.
As Hartman joked, “I’m a bit on a probation-type thing, you could say.”
“I think Ryan’s done a great job this year with the discipline aspect,” Guerin said. “We just had to have an open and honest conversation about where he was, and he still is on probation. I don’t want to say too much about that, but all I’ll say is he’s just done such a good job of being disciplined this year and I think he’s proven that he can play with an edge without crossing the line.
“Our discussion was man to man. He’s a good guy, he’s a character guy, and he gets it. He doesn’t have feelings, so he doesn’t get his feelings hurt.”
Guerin had his tongue firmly in his cheek with the last line, but Hartman has said he experienced a lot of guilt last season when he put his cap-strapped team and teammates in a bind, having to play so long without him as they fought to make the playoffs.
“When you sit out 10 games in an important playoff push and it’s not because you’re hurt and having to rehab, it was frustrating,” Hartman said. “It was frustrating, not just for me, but I’m sure organization-wise. I’m just trying to be better and smarter. Maybe the baby (first child Keyes) has calmed me down a little bit.
“Just want to continue to lead the right way and play the game the right way. Obviously, there’s moments where you have to fight and maybe go after somebody, but there really haven’t been those moments this year.”
Marcus Foligno, Hartman’s good friend and somebody who has been his linemate off and on during their Wild careers, loves the way Hartman plays the game and the care Hartman has for wanting to play a hard game.
He acknowledged it’s hard to toe the line, and in that Dallas series in 2023, Foligno crossed the line at times to the detriment of the team.
“Hartzy’s a gamer, and it’s just fun to see him kind of hitting the right stride right now for us,” Foligno said. “It’s his time of year. He can agitate but can also put the puck in the net. You need gamers this time of year, and Hartzy is 100 percent a big factor for us to win this series.”
Foligno said Hartman felt emotionally disconnected from the team last year after his suspension.
“But, look, you live and you learn,” Foligno, who has also been suspended, said. “Like me, you have to toe the line and play on that edge without crossing that line. Sometimes you get burned. So he did and got … whacked by Billy a little bit. But the biggest thing is that he came back and was a menace for us and was a smart player and learned a lot, and we need him to be that guy again this series.”
Hartman’s happy with the season he had, production-wise and discipline-wise (19 minors, two fighting majors). He said if he was asked that question in early November after the team played a poor October, he’d probably have a different answer.
“But things started slow for us out of the box, and then we turned it on, and since then we’ve been one of the top teams in the league,” Hartman said. “It’s a lot easier playing winning hockey for everyone. Team-wise, everyone as individuals, when you’re winning games, everyone looks better. Just overall, I feel confident, feel good. Winning makes things a lot better.”
Still, Hartman said it’s time for the Wild to make some noise in the playoffs.
Last year, he couldn’t get that offside review out of his head for weeks. The goal likely would have given the Wild a 3-2 series lead coming home. Instead, they ultimately lost in overtime and fell behind 3-2 in the series.
He was so convinced the Wild would win Game 6, he actually left personal items at the team hotel in Vegas, like his Nintendo Switch in the players lounge.
They didn’t.
The Wild have suffered eight consecutive first-round exits, including the qualifying round in the bubble, dating to the 2015-16 season. Hartman was part of five of them. The biggest thing he has learned is the Wild must put their foot on the gas in the middle of a series. That’s often where things have slipped.
The Wild have blown series leads in their past five first-round exits — up 2-1 last year, 1-0 and 2-1 in 2023, 2-1 in 2022, 1-0 in 2021 and 1-0 in 2020.
“It’s time we win, Hartman said. “It’s no secret about it, we’re a hungry team. I think guys in here know how badly we want this and how bad the fans want it. We’re doing everything in our power to do it, and when Game 1 starts, we’ve got to make sure that we’re ready to go right away and ready to keep it going all series long. It’s time to go on a run.”