Minnesota Wild Back in Central After Rumored to be in Pacific

It’s not quite official yet, but it does appear that the Minnesota Wild will compete in the temporarily realigned Central Division.

With the Northern border still closed between the United States and Canada, there’s an apparent issue that immediately comes to light. How do the Canadian teams play in their respective divisions if they are unable to cross the border?

The NHL theoretically could organize bubbles, but original estimations on the cost of running the Bubble for the postseason was about $35 Million. After everything was said and done, it turned out to be about $70 Million. Certainly difficult running bubbles for the whole season, but four temporary divisional bubbles is a bit more feasible.

If the League has its way though, teams will likely be playing within their own arenas and competing only with teams in their division. Because the Canadian-US border is still closed, the only real feasible option is to create an entire Canadian-Division, which has a whiplash effect on all the other divisions where Canadian teams had played.

Originally, the divisions looked something like this:

However today, Pierre LeBrun provided a different report stating:

It appears the Wild and Blues (the two teams playing the next Winter Classic as of now) have swapped, and it seems the Flyers are back in a division (it’s a joke, they just were accidentally left off the ESPN graphic).

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According to Greg Wyshynski of ESPN, Blues and their Broadcast partners (Fox Sports Midwest, I believe) were satisfied with the extra travel and later start times, whereas the Wild and their Broadcast partner (Fox Sports North) weren’t sold on the heavy travel and late start times.

Personally, I am more than fine to stay in the Central Division. As a College Student, it would be really difficult to consistently stay up late to watch my favorite NHL team play (but I would do it because I’m addicted to this team), especially in the murderous row Pacific/West division.

Colorado and Vegas are certainly early cup favorites, it wouldn’t be overly shocking to see either of Dallas or St. Louis to have another very good season after Dallas made it to the Cup Final and the Blues had a really good Regular Season, but the pandemic undercut their success. Perhaps the Sharks rebound after their dismal season. Arizona even made a bit of noise in the Play-In Round.

The Central on the other hand has two teams who are money in the bank to make the postseason: the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Carolina Hurricanes. From there, it could be a real grind for that third divisional spot. It could easily be Columbus and now divisional rival Mikko Koivu, Florida while lost from the coverage occasionally does have a solid team, Nashville could easily rebound, and with the improvement in net, the Wild could make noise.

Man, even Chicago could get hot and find a way to squeak into the playoffs through the Wild Card.

This new Central Division could be a great opportunity for the Minnesota Wild to make a ruckus and discover how far along they are on this temporary rebuild.

The Wild seem very deep on defense and look to have quality wingers, the question will be whether or not they will have the center play to properly maximize and utilize the quality play of their talented wingers.