Throughout much of the 1980s, there was a regularly-scheduled game between the original Winnipeg Jets franchise (which moved to Arizona in 1996 and now resides in Utah) and the Minnesota North Stars (who relocated to Dallas in 1993) played on December 26 – which is known as Boxing Day in Canada.
One year the Jets would travel to Bloomington, Minnesota, the morning after Christmas to face the North Stars at Met Center. The next year, the North Stars would hop on a northbound plane early on the morning after Christmas for a trip to the old Winnipeg Arena, which featured seats shoved into every available inch of space, and a massive portrait of Queen Elizabeth II smiling down upon the skaters on one end of the rink.
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The hockey was frankly never that great, with the teams skating off their holiday ham, and while the Jets and North Stars both had some great players in the 21-team era of the NHL, they collectively won a combined total of three games in the Stanley Cup Final before the franchises moved to the Sun Belt.
Flash forward to 2024, where we’re 25 years into the life of the expansion Wild and more than a decade into the new Jets, after the woeful Atlanta Thrashers moved to Manitoba in 2011. When these teams met Oct. 13 in downtown Winnipeg, not many expected what would shake out as (for now) two of the top teams in the Western Conference were on the ice that day for a 2-1 overtime win by the Jets.
But with the two teams off to red-hot starts, Monday’s rematch in Minnesota was clearly viewed as a measuring stick by people on both benches.
“We’ve talked about this, the Central Division doesn’t get any easier. Everybody is a tough out and these guys, obviously, have been having a great start – just like us,” Jets coach Scott Arniel said following the team’s morning skate in St. Paul. “We know what they’re about, and we saw them early in the year. They’re banged up a little. But at the same time, they’ve found ways to win hockey games. They’re well structured, they’ve got great goaltending and good specialty teams.”
With these two teams atop the division standings, Wild players were as focused on trying to show that the Jets were human and perhaps losing a little altitude following Winnipeg’s eye-popping 15-1 start to the season.
‘We’re looking at it as a Central Division matchup, a rivalry and a team that we’re chasing,” Wild forward Marcus Foligno said. “Measuring stick? I like to think that those games are the ones you play against the Stanley Cup champions from the previous year. But Winnipeg’s playing really well this year, and whenever you get a chance to beat a top dog in your division, it’s always something that you’ve got to be prepared for.”
Kaprizov plays, but Boyd stays
Two days after his eventful Minnesota Wild debut, Travis Boyd was in street clothes after he warmed up for the game versus Winnipeg, but he was notably still in St. Paul, and not headed back to Iowa. The Hopkins, Minnesota native was on the fourth line for the Wild’s 4-3 shootout loss in Calgary on Saturday afternoon, after an adventure just getting to the rink.
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With the injuries to Kirill Kaprizov and Marat Khusnutdinov suffered in a 5-3 win in Edmonton last Thursday, Boyd had been recalled from Iowa under emergency conditions. Boyd was one of the last players to leave the ice at the team’s morning skate at TRIA Rink on Monday, indicating that he would not be in the lineup versus the Jets. But a few hours prior to the game, the Wild terminated the emergency conditions, indicating that Kaprizov would return to the lineup, but Boyd would remain with the team, at least for the time being.
If the former Gopher is to play a home game for the Wild, it would likely be on Black Friday versus Chicago, or Saturday night versus Nashville.
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