Kyle Brodziak News

Dany Heatley's first season in Minnesota, after which coach Mike Yeo called the forward the Wild's team MVP, qualified as a disappointment when measured against just about everything in Heatley's past.

After an active 2011 off-season which saw the hire of coach Mike Yeo and the acquisition of talented forwards Dany Heatley and Devin Setoguchi from the San Jose Sharks in two separate trades, a promising start to the 2011-12 came crashing to Earth for the Minnesota Wild beginning in mid-December.A After leading the NHL in points at the 30 game mark ... (more)

The Minnesota Wild were leading the NHL two weeks before Christmas, with a sparkling 20-7-3 record and a fresh outlook under new head coach Mike Yeo.

RECAP: The Wild came into their season finale having won six of their past 10 games, but in front of 18,864 fans at the Xcel Energy Center, they closed the season with a thud on Saturday, April 7. They took just four shots in the first period and gave up two goals in the first 14 minutes of the game.

GM Chuck Fletcher's big offseason moves worked well for a while. But the Wild ended up where it had been the previous three seasons -- out of the playoffs.