Matt Boldy's first practice back ST. PAUL - The 2024-25 NHL season has officially started. The Minnesota Wild open the season on Thursday with a home game against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Here are some bold predictions for the upcoming season. MARCO ROSSI SCORES 25 PLUS GOALS AND HAS 60 PLUS POINTS The young Wild center had a breakout season last year and finished sixth in the NHL's Calder Trophy voting for the league's best rookie. Rossi, 23, had 21 goals, 19 assists, and 40 points for the Wild in all 82 games last season. He was one of two Wild players to have played in all 82 games. Brock Faber was the other. The 5-foot-9 center started the year with Marcus Foligno and Freddy Gaudreau as his line mates. He played only nine games with the two of them and played most of his minutes with Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello. Rossi played his second most minutes with Marcus Johansson and Zuccarello with 28 games with the two of them. According to MoneyPuck. [https://moneypuck.com/lines.htm] This year, Rossi is set to open the season with Kaprizov and Zuccarello as the team's number one center. He is in a contract year and will be a restricted free agent after the year. According to Natural Stat Trick [https://www.naturalstattrick.com/teamreport.php?season=20232024&team=MIN&stype=2], the Kaprizov, Zuccarello, and Rossi line scored 19 goals in 29 games last year. They will start the year together. Safe to say, expect a big year for Rossi. MATT BOLDY SCORES 40 Based on general box score stats this may seem like a massive bold prediction but if you dig deeper, this shouldn't be a hot take. Boldy, 23, started the year last season with one goal in the first 12 games. He finished the year with 28 goals, 33 assists, and 61 points under head coach John Hynes in 63 games. If you scale that clip to a 82-game season Boldy would have had 36 goals, 43 assists, and 79 points. Once Hynes took over as the Wild's head coach Boldy received more ice time and took off. He averaged 19:05 of ice time under Hynes and 17:58 under Dean Evason. According to Evolving Hockey [https://evolving-hockey.com/], Boldy is projected to finish the 2024-25 season with a higher GAR (Goals above replacement) than Kirill Kaprizov. The 6-foot-2 forward keeps getting better as the seasons progress. If he stays healthy, it is safe to say Boldy will score more than 30 but is 40 possible? ONE OF MARCUS FOLIGNO OR YAKOV TRENIN WILL FINISH TOP FIVE IN SELKE VOTING Believe it or not but Marcus Foligno has been one of the best defensive forward in the NHL for the last couple of seasons. And Yakov Trenin hasn't been far behind. Foligno, 33, finished 13th in xGA last year among all forwards. He played in only 55 games for the Wild which was the second fewest of the 12 guys in front of him. Last season Foligno finished in the 87th percentile for defensive metrics amongst all forwards. The last three years he finished in the 92nd percentile. According to evolving hockey [https://evolving-hockey.com/], in 2017-18, Foligno finished fifth in the NHL in xGA/60, second in 2018-19, 18th in 2019-20, first in the NHL in 2020-21, and in 2021-22 Foligno ranked ninth. 2022-23 was the first year that Foligno has ranked outside of the top 20 in xGA/60 in his last five seasons. He followed that up by finishing 13th in xGA/60 during the 2023-24 season. Trenin, 27, finished last season in the 91st percentile among all forwards in defensive metrics and 95th percentile in the last three years. It might be bold to predict one of them will finish in the top five in Selke voting but it isn't bold to assume they will combine for 400 plus hits. Trenin had 207 hits last year and Foligno had 179. Foligno ranks 15th in the NHL amongst forward in hits in the last two NHL seasons and Trenin ranks 18th. KIRILL KAPRIZOV WINS THE MVP AWARD There is no doubt that Kirill Kaprizov is the Wild's best player. Kaprizov, 27, is coming off a season in which he recorded 46 goals, 50 assists, and 96 points in 76 games for the Wild. He has 160 goals, 170 assists, and 330 points in 278 career NHL games in four seasons. Kaprizov has now posted three straight 40-goal seasons. Since 2021 Kaprizov has scored 133 goals and 50 power-play goals. His 133 goals puts him fifth in the NHL since 2021 and fourth in the NHL in power play goals. Only Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, David Pastrnak, and Auston Matthews have scored more total goals in that span and only Chris Kreider, Sam Reinhart, and Draisaitl have scored more power-play goals. It is safe to say that if Kaprizov has another big year, he should be up for MVP voting. If the Wild make the playoffs, Kaprizov should for sure be considered for the MVP Trophy. Make sure you bookmark The Hockey News' Minnesota Wild page [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/minnesota-wild/] for the latest news, exclusive interviews, breakdowns and so much more. OTHER WILD NEWS
