The Wild settled on their top line relatively late last season, and it was still one of the best in the NHL. Kirill Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy scored 29 goals in 374.9 minutes of ice time last season,10th among combinations.

Among lines that played together for fewer than 470 minutes, it was the NHL’s most productive, according to advanced statistics from moneypuck.com.

Yet, the Wild started training camp this week hoping they can break up that line. Minnesota missed the playoffs last season for the second time in 12 seasons, in no small part because the team’s offense was top heavy.

“The easy thing would be to just go back to that one line that had success last year,” general manager Bill Guerin said this week. “We don’t want one line just to have success. We need multiple lines to have success. We need to regain chemistry in some lines that we had before, and create new ones. And I think it’s a good move.”

To that end, coach John Hynes has reunited wingers Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello with center Ryan Hartman, which joined forces sometime around Thanksgiving in 2021 and dominated the rest of the way.

Those three players combined to score 105 goals and 252 points for then-coach Dean Evason and a team that finished with team records in points (113) and wins (53). According to moneypuck.com, their 48 goals scored as a line that year ranked fourth in the NHL.

Kaprizov and Zuccarello have played together a lot since then, even strength and with a man advantage, but Hartman has been all over the place, playing center and wing on four lines even last season. Playing mostly with Kaprizov and Zuccarello in 2021-22, he scored a career-high 34 goals and 65 points in 82 games.

When Hynes replaced Evason as coach Nov. 27, Hartman was serving a two-game suspension for tripping Detroit’s Alex DeBrincat. Minnesota won those two games, and when Hartman returned, he was playing wing on the fourth line with the Deweys — Brandon Duhaime and Connor Dewar — each of whom was traded at the deadline last February.

“I told Hynsie right away, I don’t care where I am, as long as our team’s winning. Whatever helps us be a better team,” Hartman said Saturday after a practice at TRIA Rink. “If that’s me playing between Kirill and Zuccy, that’s great. If that’s me trying to be a depth scorer and shut down some lines, that’s great, too.”

For now, the Wild are committed to getting the band back together in the hopes that combining Boldy and Eriksson Ek with another winger — right now it’s Marcus Johansson — will create another dangerous scoring line. Boldy (29) and Eriksson Ek (30) each set career highs in goals last season.

None of these players traveled to Winnipeg for Saturday night’s preseason opener against the Jets, but they have composed the team’s top two lines in practice during three practices and a pair of scrimmages.

The team’s second-best line combination last season was Kaprizov and Zuccarello centered by rookie Marco Rossi, 19 goals for (and 13 against) in 313.5 minutes. Johansson (11 goals, 30 points) and Freddy Gaudreau (five goals, 15 points) struggled no matter who they played with.

After Kaprizov (46), Eriksson Ek and Boldy the next-highest goal scorers last season were Hartman and Rossi with 21 goals.

“If the other (lines) weren’t very good, let’s find the reasons why,” Hynes said this week. “Maybe spread it out a little bit.”

The Wild also hope to kickstart Zuccarello, a skilled veteran who finished with 51 assists last season but 12 goals, only seven of which came when at even strength. That was the winger’s fewest since he had three even-strength goals while playing 15 games for the New York Rangers in 2012-13.

“At the end of the day, you need production from more of us,” Zuccarello said. “So, if we can do that, I think we’re shown in the past that we’re a good team, a hard team to play against. So, we’ve got to get back to that.”

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