Biggest potential surprise
Zeev Buium could be a big part of the Wild this season. The defenseman missed a few days of training camp with an upper-body injury but has since returned. He logged 23:04 of ice time in the Wild’s 5-2 loss to the Dallas Stars on Sept. 25. The 19-year-old had 48 points (13 goals, 35 assists) in 41 games last season with the University of Denver before getting an assist in four Stanley Cup Playoff games with the Wild. Buium helped the United States win gold at the 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship, where he had six points (two goals, four assists) in seven games, and gold in this year’s World Championship, where he had four points (one goal, three assists) in eight games.
Ready to contribute
Jesper Wallstedt has gotten little tastes of the NHL with the five games he’s played with the Wild over the past two seasons. It’s time for the goalie to take the next step. With Marc-Andre Fleury having retired, Wallstedt is expected to be the backup to starter Filip Gustavsson. He’ll need to show improvement from last season, however. The 22-year-old was 9-14-4 with a 3.59 goals-against average, .879 save percentage and one shutout in 27 games with Iowa, the Wild’s American Hockey League affiliate.
Fantasy sleeper with EDGE stats
Zeev Buium, D: The rookie had a power-play assist in four games during the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs and could be an instant offensive threat for Minnesota, which has not had a defenseman score at least 15 goals in a season since Brent Burns had 17 in 2010-11. Buium joins forward teammates Matt Boldy and Marco Rossi among NHL.com’s fantasy top 50 keeper rankings and should be considered a top five rookie for this season. Per NHL EDGE stats, Buium ranked in the 85th percentile among defensemen in offensive zone time percentage (45.0) during the 2025 playoffs and in the 88th percentile in power-play offensive zone time percentage (61.5). — Troy Perlowitz
Projected lineup
Kirill Kaprizov — Marco Rossi — Matt Boldy
Liam Ohgren — Joel Eriksson Ek — Vladimir Tarasenko
Marcus Johansson — Danila Yurov — Ryan Hartman
Marcus Foligno — Nico Sturm — Yakov Trenin
Jacob Middleton — Brock Faber
Zeev Buium — Jared Spurgeon
Carson Lambos — Zach Bogosian
Filip Gustavsson
Jesper Wallstedt
Injured: Jonas Brodin (upper body)