Welcome to the 2022-23 season preview as brought to you by Betway Sports. We’ll be taking a dive into each team’s offseason and what their Stanley Cup odds are for next season from the worst odds to the best. All odds are current as of the time of writing.
Minnesota Wild Stanley Cup Odds: +2000
Welcome to cap hell, Minnesota.
Things have tightened up considerably for the Minnesota Wild with Zach Parise and Ryan Suter sitting on their books as dead cap, but don’t let that keep them from contending. A year after finishing second in the Central Division only to be knocked off in six games by the St. Louis Blues, the Wild are looking to resurge.
They’ll do so with Marc-Andre Fleury between the pipes. The journeyman netminder inked a two-year, $3.5-million AAV deal while flipping Cam Talbot in a controversial move to the Ottawa Senators.
The Wild also lost Kevin Fiala this offseason, flipping him to the LA Kings in exchange for high-end defensive prospect Brock Faber and a 2022 1st-round pick. A nice return, but Fiala was the Wild’s second-leading scorer last year. A cap casualty, as they say.
That being said, Kirill Kaprisov is coming off a career year that saw him put up 47 goals and 108 points, and the franchise player will need to keep it up should they have playoff aspirations.
The Wild weren’t able to do much this offseason beyond the Fiala and Fleury deals, but they added some depth through their lineup by signing Andrej Suster and Nic Petan.
The Wild be banking on players like Joel Eriksson Ek, Tyson Jost and Matthew Boldy, among others, to take a big step forward this year. Top prospect Marco Rossi, meanwhile, is expected to debut with the big club this season.
Are we betting on the Wild to win the cup? No. While this team has lots of nice pieces, they’re still a young club and I’m not convinced they have what it takes to go all the way.