Minnesota Wild’s schedule about to become even more …. wild

The Minnesota Wild played 56 games in a span of 119 days during the COVID-19 shortened regular season in 2020-21.

But the Wild, who face the Chicago Blackhawks in a home-and-home series this weekend, are about to embark on an even more hectic workload.

The Wild, who have played five games since Dec. 20, will now play 41 games over the final 82 days of the regular season.

So, get ready. Minnesota’s schedule is about to get a lot more … wild.

It is part of the comprehensive update to the 2021-22 regular-season schedule that the league announced on Wednesday. The league will play 95 games from Feb. 7-22 — a three-week window that was initially set as a league pause to allow players to compete in the Olympic Games.

Ninety-eight games that were postponed due to rising COVID-19 numbers are addressed in the schedule adjustment. That includes seven Wild games that have been postponed so far this year.

Those changes mean that the Wild now have a game scheduled every other day from Feb. 12-26 and don’t have more than a two-day break for the rest of the schedule from there. The Wild play 16 games in 29 days in April alone.

Minnesota sits in fourth place in the Central Division with 47 points, having played just 35 games so far. That falls between one to six games fewer than the three teams in front of the Wild in the Division  — Colorado, St. Louis and Nashville.

“We’re all going to be involved in it so every (team ) is equal,” Wild coach Dean Evason said during a media availability session on Wednesday. “Our schedule anyway at the end of the year was a bit crazy with (a game) every second day basically.

“Hockey players want to play hockey. They don’t want to practice hockey,” Evason said. “We’re all excited to get into a routine of playing games. Last year we were playing so many games, it was fun.”

It also might be a schedule that should challenge the Wild both physically and mentally. It also could prove to be another test for the team’s depth this season. The Wild have responded to that adversity over the past month.  The highlight perhaps being a 3-2 shootout victory over Washington early this month with nine players out of the lineup due to injuries or the league’s COVID-19 protocol.

“It’s going to be a grind the rest of the year,” Evason said of the schedule workload. “It’s great, right? We get to play hockey. Why not?  I’d rather be on the ice preparing to play a game than be on the ice preparing to practice.

“(The players), they’ll embrace it. Whatever shakes out with the schedule, they’ll tell us when we play and we’ll get ready when the puck is dropped.”

Let the games begin. And there will be plenty of them for the Wild over the next few months.