The fantasy season is upon us. Another year of tears of joy and heartbreak.
To help you along, here’s your fantasy outlook for the Minnesota Wild:
2022-23 Fantasy Outlook: Minnesota Wild
Last season: 53-22-7, 2nd Central, 5th overall. GF: 5th, GA: 16th, PP: 18th, PK: 25th.
Kirill Kaprizov is arguably the best Wild player ever. Marian Gaborik also did a lot of heavy lifting by himself, but he wasn’t a potential league MVP like Kaprizov, and the Wild’s playoff hopes live and die with him. He helped the Wild to a franchise-best 53 wins and 113 points and were certainly one of the more intriguing teams because they seemed to be far better than the sum of their parts. Zach Parise and Ryan Suter may have overstayed their welcome. Still, the Wild had, objectively speaking, lost two solid players from their lineup and replacing them wouldn’t be easy because of the cap penalties.
When GM Bill Guerin recognized that this team could go on a long playoff run, and with some added urgency knowing that re-signing Kevin Fiala would be impossibly difficult, he took a home-run swing at Marc-Andre Fleury. The hope was that Fleury’s championship pedigree could help win the Wild a series or two, or at worst, form a very good 1-2 combination not seen since the Dwayne Roloson and Manny Fernandez tag team. In the end, the rest of the team was just too thin against a Blues team that boasted nine 20-goal scorers, and the Wild were ousted in the opening round for the sixth team in seven seasons. The Wild finished their playoff run understanding that getting back to where they were will be even tougher in the future with a combined $12.7 million in cap penalties for the Suter and Parise buyouts.
Best fantasy option: Kirill Kaprizov, LW
There’s no question, and nobody comes close. Both BetMGM’s over/under points bet and THN Pool Guide’s projection has Kaprizov scoring in the triple digits. His 108-point campaign last season set many franchise records, and even at a relatively deep position, Kaprizov is an easy first-round draft choice in standard fantasy leagues. He’s one of the few wingers who can amass points by himself, not needing an elite center to feed him passes or another elite winger to play on the opposite side to distract opposing defenses. How vital was Kaprizov to the Wild offense?
According to naturalstattrick.com, at 5-on-5, Kaprizov’s Individual Point Percentage among skaters with 1,000 TOI is second-best in the league at…
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