Zach Bogosian, who made Minnesota his home before he made the Wild his team, steadies a ravaged defense

Zach Bogosian is proud of his upstate New York roots, and hockey has taken him all over the map — from Atlanta, where the defenseman made his NHL debut 16 years ago, to Tampa Bay for two separate stints, the former culminating in a Stanley Cup.

But Bogosian might as well be a Minnesotan at this point.

“It’s more of my lifestyle,” said Bogosian, who summered in Minnetonka for years before last season’s trade from the Lightning. “I like to hunt, and I like to fish. I like the outdoors. I like the cold, and I like the summer.”

On the ice, the fit has been just as natural with the Wild, especially of late since Bogosian’s style and experience have helped stabilize a defense rocked by injuries.

“I like playing more,” Bogosian said. “I like having more on my shoulders. Definitely the competitive juices start flowing, and that’s what you want as a player, for sure.”

Ascending the depth chart, however, isn’t the only change Bogosian has faced this season.

He’s on a much better team than the version of the Wild that acquired him from Tampa Bay in November 2023 to shake up the blue line. Although Bogosian fulfilled his responsibilities as a gritty, stay-at-home defender, the Wild still floundered and missed the playoffs. But Bogosian stuck around, re-signing last March for two years and $2.5 million, and now the Wild rank among the best in the NHL.

“Especially someone that’s been around long, you want to win and be on good teams, and that’s what we’re doing right now,” Bogosian said. “We’re trying to create a winning foundation, a winning culture, and not that the pieces weren’t in place before. It’s just this year it seems to be a little different in that sense of trying to make sure there wasn’t so many ups and downs.

“I think we’ve done a good job of that. I think before Christmas we had a little bit of a slide, but you know what? I’ve been on really good teams. It happens to all of them. Just trying to rebound back from those, and we’ve done a good job. Now our challenge is to start beating all the top teams in the league, which I know we’ve been banged up and we’re not going to make excuses, but I think we’ve shown a lot of resilience and consistency throughout the year.”

Injuries to Jonas Brodin, Brock Faber and captain Jared Spurgeon have elevated Bogosian from the third pairing where he started the season — he’s gone from averaging 15 minutes, 49 seconds through the first two months to 18:17 since mid-December — and Bogosian’s past has made for a smooth transition.

After all, the third overall pick in 2008 by the then-Thrashers was in prominent positions with the Jets (after the team relocated to Winnipeg from Atlanta) and Sabres before the Lightning added him to bolster their blue line ahead of their Cup run inside the 2020 bubble.

Aside from his physical defending, Bogosian has two goals and two assists over his past seven games to go along with 51 blocked shots and 49 hits as one of the Wild’s most veteran defensemen. The 34-year-old is seven games away from 900.

“The game has changed so much since my rookie year,” Bogosian said. “But I think just trying to play with high energy, play competitive, but also having the mental awareness and strength to just make sure that, hey, things are going to break down. That’s part of hockey. Hockey is a game of mistakes. It’s about moving past those.

“I try to be a calming influence. I think at times my wires cross every once in a while, but that’s not always a bad thing. I sometimes play better that way. But, yeah, we got a lot of guys back there that are good players, and I think collectively as a group we’ve done a good job trying to weather the injury bug that’s been going around the team.”

With the Wild, Bogosian’s job finally synced up with his offseason life.

He “randomly picked” Minnesota and “moved out here blind” after looking for somewhere to train. He, wife Bianca (a former pro soccer player) and their four children settled in Edina from Minnetonka to shorten the game-day commute. His brother Aaron is also in the organization as a human performance specialist, helping with character assessments of draft-eligible prospects in addition to working with the player development staff.

Just two seasons into his tenure with the Wild but after almost a decade here, Minnesota is home for Bogosian.

“It means a lot to me to put on a Wild jersey,” he said. “Just living here for the last seven, eight years, I’m not homegrown, but there is a bit of that sense inside of me.”