Wild hit the ice for first practice, take first step on a long road

Ever the setup man, Mats Zuccarello didn’t pass up the opportunity to assist Kirill Kaprizov during Kaprizov’s first address of Wild training camp.

Asked how he felt about being back on a line with Zuccarello, Kaprizov laughed when Zuccarello answered for him.

“Good,” Zuccarello quipped from the other side of the room before Kaprizov chimed in with a take on Zuccarello’s demeanor.

“He was a little bit grumpy today,” said Kaprizov, who returned to the Twin Cities after spending the summer back home in Russia and playing in the all-star game Zuccarello organizes in Norway. “I don’t know. Maybe his daughters don’t sleep all night.”

Their off-ice camaraderie is already on point, but whether the two’s chemistry between the boards returns just as sharply will be answered in time.

Kaprizov’s reunion with Zuccarello kicked off Thursday at Tria Rink in St. Paul, the duo teaming up with center Ryan Hartman for even more of a throwback.

Three seasons ago, the trio had career years on the Wild’s top line in the team’s highest point total in franchise history. Turning back the clock might be the only way the Wild rebound from sinking in the standings and missing the playoffs.

What other choice do they have?

They went all in on this core last year when they signed Zuccarello, Hartman and alternate captain Marcus Foligno to extensions. That left them little to spend in free agency, and their budget was already down the nearly $15 million still tied up in the Zach Parise and Ryan Suter buyouts.

Forwards Yakov Trenin and Jakub Lauko are the only newcomers to the NHL roster.

So, the pressure is on the incumbents.

“It really is,” President of Hockey Operations Bill Guerin said. “They’re getting another opportunity, so I hope they’re excited about it. I hope they look at it as a challenge.”

From a manpower perspective, the Wild are off to a good start after a season pillaged by injury.

Captain Jared Spurgeon is “feeling good” after getting shut down in January to have surgery on his hip and back; the veteran defenseman mentioned he’d been training pretty much since the operations.

Foligno’s “way better” after having core muscle surgery in April.

“Best I’ve felt in a long time,” Foligno said. “No setbacks. Nothing like that. It was a really good offseason.”

Foligno worked with Trenin and center Marco Rossi. That line was praised by coach John Hynes, who also had kudos for the Lauko, Marat Khusnutdinov and Frederick Gaudreau pairing. But Hynes said he’d like to see more intensity and speed during the scrimmage.

This is Trenin’s third team since March: The winger’s entire career was with Nashville until Colorado added him before the trade deadline. He signed a four-year, $14 million contract with the Wild and settled in a Minneapolis apartment.

“It took time to get furniture, so I had to sleep on the mattress and eat on a suitcase,” said Trenin, 27, who played for Hynes when he coached the Predators from 2020-23.

Trenin’s first Wild training camp is goalie Marc-Andre Fleury’s last.

The future Hall of Famer announced in April, after signing a one-year, $2.5 million deal, that this season would be the final of his 21-year career.

“Trying to enjoy my time here — the grind, the tough times, the battles with the guys on the ice,” said Fleury, the second-winningest goalie of all time. “I’m just trying to enjoy.”

Fleury, 39, could platoon with Filip Gustavsson and rookie Jesper Wallstedt, with the Wild wanting to keep all three goalies active if their performance merits it.

On defense, Spurgeon rejoins fellow veterans Jonas Brodin, Zach Bogosian, Jon Merrill and Jake Middleton and second-year players Brock Faber and Declan Chisholm.

Simply being healthy could better the blue line, but the Wild need bounce-back seasons from a handful of players to progress on offense.

That’s the reason for resurrecting the Kaprizov-Zuccarello tandem, which meant breaking up Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy after they steamrolled in the second half last season.

The Wild are hoping spreading out their best scorers yields more production from all over their lineup.

Eriksson Ek and Boldy practiced with Marcus Johansson, another nod to a more fruitful past since the three clicked two seasons ago.

“We need multiple lines to have success,” Guerin said. “We need to regain chemistry in some lines that we had before and create new ones. I think it’s a good move.”

Make no mistake, though, the Wild are running it back minus a few tweaks: Aside from Trenin and Lauko, Liam Ohgren could be the other addition up front if the rookie makes the team after debuting in the NHL in April.

But most of the team is unchanged. The players who were along for the collapse are the same players in charge of restoring the Wild’s competitiveness.

“I want to make sure that we have urgency this year, that we are afraid to fail,” Guerin said. “This is serious. There’s no room for how we started last year and how we were up and down. I know there were injuries and all that stuff, but we were pretty healthy at the start of the year.

“So, guys better be ready.”