The Minnesota Wild will be without their best player for the seventh game in a row when they face off against the Colorado Avalanche on Thursday night in Saint Paul, Minn.

The Minnesota Wild hosted the Colorado Avalanche for their first season meeting on Thursday evening, Jan. 9. The Wild were still without Kirill Kaprizov, Brock Faber, Jared Spurgeon, and Jakub Lauko.

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The Wild did a lot of roster manipulation to get David Jiricek onto the roster for his NHL debut. The right-shot former Columbus Blue Jackets defenseman was by far the Wild’s best and somehow wasn’t on for a goal against in 16 minutes.

The Avalanche struck first when the Wild defense was caught flat-footed and Josh Manson’s long lead pass found Logan O’Connor unattended at the blue line. The Colorado forward ripped a low shot past Gustavsson before even four minutes had ticked off in the game.

The Wild know they cannot replace Kirill Kaprizov with one single player ... 52 assists) in 42 games. Mikko Rantanen is next with 58 points (24 goals, 34 assists) in 42 games, and star defenseman ...

The Colorado Avalanche and Mikko Rantanen are at an impasse in contract negotiations, as the star winger’s demands diverge substantially from the team’s maximum offer. Rantanen, playing in the ...

Minnesota placed star forward Kirill Kaprizov on long-term injured reserve retroactive to Dec. 23. He is eligible to return to the lineup as early as Saturday’s tilt in Nashville. Though that ...

The Wild held two separate leads before falling to Connor McDavid and the Oilers, losing Marcus Johansson along the way.

This is the obvious one. Nathan MacKinnon leads the NHL with 68 points, seven more than Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl in second place. Also of note, he’s first in points per game at 1.58, narrowly ahead of the Art Ross winner last season, Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov at 1.57.

To mark the halfway point of the 2024-25 regular season, NHL.com is running its third installment of the Trophy Tracker series. Today, we look at the race for the Hart Trophy, given annually to the player adjudged to be the most valuable to his team in the NHL as selected in a poll by the Professional Hockey Writers Association.

Jan. 18, 2025