Kirill Kaprizov will skate in the NHL All-Star Game on Saturday with the Nathan McKinnon team after being selected 11th overall in Thursday night’s fantasy draft, indicative of the respect he has from his peers.

Leading the Wild with 45 points, Kaprizov has been a bright spot in an otherwise rough season for the local NHL team, a hard-working wing with a motor to match his skills.

But he’s not the only bright spot.

Joel Eriksson Ek leads the team with 21 goals, already his third straight 20-goal season, and rookie blue liner Brock Faber has been a revelation, a calm, strong presence on the blue line who leads the team in time on ice (24:51) and will garner serious votes for the Calder Trophy. And in his first full NHL season, Marco Rossi is proving to be an effective NHL center.

To reach the playoffs for the third straight season — fourth if you include the 2020 COVID season — the Wild needed Eriksson Ek to continue his ascendance. They needed Rossi to be dependable, and at 13-15–28 and plus-4, he has been. And Faber? Well, the former Gophers star has been better than anyone could have realistically hoped for a rookie NHL defenseman, 4-25–29, a plus-4 and a key contributor in all tactical situations.

So, why are the Wild in all probability not going to make the playoffs? Why will they return from their bye week/all-star break on Monday 13th in the Western Conference and in line behind five other teams for the second of two wild-card playoff spots?

Because general manager Bill Guerin was threading a needle this season. For the Wild to have a winning season and earn a postseason spot, he didn’t just need Faber and Rossi to perform well, or Eriksson Ek to improve, or Kaprizov to stay on course. Guerin needed everyone else — everyone — to play at his best and stay at least relatively healthy.

To get where Guerin wanted to be at this point, battling for the best possible playoff seed with a chance to add some help at the March 8 trade deadline, it had to be smooth sailing — no errors or misfortune — and it’s been anything but.

There are two major issues here. One is the personnel decisions Guerin has made, some that are paying dividends, others that aren’t. The other one is the GM’s decision to buy out the contracts of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, which triggered NHL penalties that have sucked $14.7 million from the payroll this year and next.

To get to the trade deadline with the playoffs essentially assured, and the ability to add pieces rather than jettison veterans due for free agency at season’s end, the Wild had to a) play better and b) avoid long-term injury reserve, the use of which eliminates the chance of accumulating salary cap space.

Instead, the Wild started the season with Jared Spurgeon, one of the team’s biggest four or five pieces, on the injured list, and twice placed him on LTIR before he was shut down for the season last month because of hip and back injuries.

Instead, the Wild lost other key pieces Kaprizov, Jonas Brodin, Matt Boldy, Mats Zuccarello, Filip Gustavsson and Freddy Gaudreau for long stretches, and Ryan Hartman and Marcus Foligno for shorter ones. Add in disappointing seasons by veteran forwards Marcus Johansson (8-16–24 in 48 games) and Gaudreau (3-7–10 in 37 games), and veteran defensemen Alex Gologiski and Jon Merrill, and it’s been something of a disaster.

To achieve their lofty goals this season, the Wild needed everything to go right, and only a few things have, most notably Kaprizov, Erikkson Ek, Rossi and Faber.

But here’s the thing about following a team closely: You see every game, and just about every team plays well for stretches, and every team has wins over good teams. The Wild went 11-3-0 in their first 14 games after John Hynes replaced Dean Evason as head coach, and are 4-0 against the top two teams in the East, Boston and Florida.

So, you wonder: Can the Wild get their act together and compete for a Stanley Cup? You see the standings, but you also have seen them play well.

Well, from Dec. 20 to Jan. 13, the Seattle Kraken, currently 10th in the West with 52 points — three better than the Wild — won nine straight games. Do you think Seattle is gonna get its act together and compete for the Stanley Cup?

No, because you just look at the standings, and at this point in a season, the standings pretty much tell you what you need to know.

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