Fantasy Sleepers, Breakouts and Busts From Every NHL Team: Minnesota Wild

Puck drop is nearly here, and with training camps opening across the league, it's officially fantasy draft season. It's been a busy offseason, full of blockbuster trades, big-name signings and roster overhauls that are only just starting to settle.

We're going team by team to help you prepare, flagging a sleeper worth stashing, a breakout candidate ready to take off, and a bust that might not be worth the price you'll pay to draft him. Next up: the Minnesota Wild.

Minnesota put together its most successful season in over a decade, finishing 45-23-12 for 104 points, third in the Central Division. The Wild broke an 11-year drought by winning a playoff round for the first time since 2015, knocking off Dallas in six games in the first round before running into the Presidents' Trophy-winning Colorado Avalanche in the second round, falling in five games after blowing a 3-0 lead in the deciding game.

Minnesota's offseason moves were relatively modest, adding depth pieces like Blake Coleman and Olli Maatta while letting veteran Mats Zuccarello depart in free agency. After ending years of first-round frustration, the Wild appear ready to handle sky-high expectations.

Entering a contract year, Hartman will look to elevate his game back to his career-high 65-point season from 2021-22. With Marcus Johansson and Mats Zuccarello both leaving town, Minnesota has little choice but to hand Hartman a bigger role. 

In recent years, he's played a steady 15 to 16 minutes a night in a middle-six role, but with a top-six spot and top power-play minutes now expected, Hartman should approach 18 minutes a night, a workload he hasn't seen since his 65-point season. He'll get power-play time alongside Minnesota's stars, and on the second line, he's set to play heavy minutes next to two hungry wingers of his own in Blake Coleman and Bobby Brink, both also entering contract years. 

That shared incentive should push all three to bring their best, with the Wild counting on each of them more than ever. Hartman is rostered in just ten percent of Yahoo leagues and could easily finish with 50 to 60 points.

After missing 48 games over the past two seasons, the former 60-point centerman is back and ready to take full advantage of his elite teammates. People love to say the Wild don't have a true number-one center, but they forget Eriksson Ek is right there: from 2022 to 2024, he racked up 125 points in 155 games, a pace in line with a standout talent like Martin Necas over that span. 

Last season, he finished with 51 points in just 70 games, a rate that projects to nearly 60 points over a full slate. With Johansson and Zuccarello gone, Eriksson Ek is expected to continue playing predominantly with Matt Boldy, who is coming off a career year, and to see more time alongside top-ten talent Kirill Kaprizov. 

That trio, even in a smaller sample last season, posted a plus-4 rating over 162 minutes across 61 games, and the full unit of Eriksson Ek, Boldy and Johansson was even more dominant at plus-17. Despite missing time, Eriksson Ek still finished just outside the top 100 last season and is currently going as late as 140th overall on average. 

That top-100 finish shouldn't be viewed as his ceiling but rather his floor, and with two elite wingers on his line, he looks like one of the best values in the later rounds of this year's draft.

Don't get it twisted, the former 20th overall pick from the 2021 NHL Draft is a solid netminder who should put up decent numbers this season. But it's worth noting he doesn't have the number-one job fully locked down. 

For stretches of last season, including a 12-game span from late February to mid-March, Filip Gustavsson reclaimed the starting role before Wallstedt got hot again to close out the year. Wallstedt will have the advantage of Gustavsson opening the season on injured reserve, but once Gustavsson returns, the two could easily fall back into a timeshare. 

If Wallstedt shows any signs of slipping once Gustavsson is healthy, he could quickly lose starts, and that's a real risk given how high he's currently being drafted. The 23-year-old is going off the board as high as 60th overall, ahead of names like Jeremy Swayman, Brandon Bussi, Karel Vejmelka and Jacob Markstrom, all of whom project to start more games and offer a safer bet than Wallstedt.

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