The Minnesota WIld’s 2026-27 schedule was revealed on Thursday and there is a lot for fans to digest. The schedule, which begins with 20 of its first 30 games on the road including an Oct. 1 matchup with the Nashville Predators, will be a challenge for Minnesota in their quest to build on last year’s team, but also will feature an 84-game slate for the first time since the Wild joined the NHL in the year 2000.
Two more games will be great for fans and the Wild as they’ll create extra revenue to increase the salary cap and potentially field two large contracts in the coming years. But this season could be an added challenge as the expanded slate will test Minnesota’s depth.
The Wild’s depth will be tested with the NHL’s new 84-game schedule
Wild fans have already seen the impact injuries can have on the current roster. While Minnesota advanced out of the first round of the playoffs for the first time since 2015 last season, it came at a steep price as Joel Eriksson Ek and Jonas Brodin were injured late in the series against the Dallas Stars.
Neither player returned for the following series against the Colorado Avalanche and it threw players into larger situations than they should have been as Jake Middleton was on the ice for 13 goals during the series with Colorado and Ryan Hartman was elevated to a top-line role. Michael McCarron even played minutes on the second line when Danila Yurov wasn’t ready for the opportunity and the Wild were gentlemen’s swept as a result.
Looking at this year’s team, the questions about the Wild’s depth remain. Marcus Johansson, Mats Zuccarello and the expected departure of Vladimir Tarasenko leaves Minnesota without 150 points in their lineup from last year and while they replaced them by trading for Blake Coleman, signing Maxim Shabanov and expecting Bobby Brink to step up into a middle-six role, they will have issues if someone gets hurt.
The blue line is even more dire behind Brock Faber and Quinn Hughes. Brodin and Jared Spurgeon aren’t getting any younger and while they swapped out Middleton for Olli Matta, Daemon Hunt and Zach Bogosian don’t have much backup in the final spot.
The goalie situation is also not immune as Filip Gustavsson is expected to miss the start of the regular season as he recovers from offseason hip surgery. If Jesper Wallstedt gets injured and the team has to turn to Calvin Pickard, that’s where things could really get messy.
Ideally, the Wild won’t have to deal with injuries and perhaps the final two games won’t matter because they’ll have a playoff spot locked up in advance. But it also creates an extra grind to navigate through the regular season and it could affect an aging team that doesn’t have much depth behind it.
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