It was perhaps the most dramatic moment of the 2025 playoffs for Minnesota Wild fans.
With the best-of-seven series versus Vegas tied and two games each, and Game 5 tied 3-3 in the waning minutes of regulation, Ryan Hartman went hard to the Vegas net. With just 75 seconds left in the game, the puck went in. The red light went on, and with a smile his face, Hartman looked at the Wild bench and strutted to the corner of T-Mobile Arena, as the rink went mostly silent.
In that moment, the Wild were barely a minute away from heading back to St. Paul with a 3-2 lead in the series, needing a home win to reach the second round of the playoffs for the first time in a decade.
But just a minute or so later, the Golden Knights fans were roaring again. The play that led to Hartman’s goal was reviewed, and the video showed that Gustav Nyquist had entered the offensive zone with a skate roughly an inch over the blue line and ahead of the puck.
The goal came off the scoreboard. The game went to overtime. Vegas scored and took a 3-2 series lead back to Minnesota. The Knights would close out the series two days later.
Once again, Minnesotans were left wondering what might have been. And those Wild fans who spent the summer fixated on that one play were not alone.
“That goal stuck in my head along with a lot of other people. Obviously, hard,” Hartman said after a training camp practice at TRIA Rink. “But that’s hockey. There’s plays in every series where you wish you could have a goal back. Even if I score, we still have to win the hockey game. So, we move past that.”
For Hartman, who turned 31 in September, the last month of the 2024-25 season and the playoffs were about moving on, emphatically, from injuries and a suspension that had him shelved for eight games in February.
Just as he doesn’t dwell on the goal that was disallowed, Hartman has moved past the disciplinary action handed down by the NHL, and the play in Ottawa that led to it.
“It was a one play, you know? It’s not like I was going around cheap-shotting everyone. It was an unfortunate play that ended up in a suspension that I learned from and moved on,” said Hartman, who posted 11 goals and 15 assists in 69 regular-season games. “I’m still going to play the same way and play up to the line and not cross over. But for me to be my best, I’ve got to be engaged. physically and emotionally. That’s when I do my best.”
In the past, the Chicago native has spent much of the summer back in the Windy City. But after he and wife Lauren welcomed a daughter 13 months ago, they limited their Illinois time in 2025, coming back to Minnesota Aug. 1 to get settled in for training camp and his 12th NHL campaign.
“It’s a little different,” he said. “We used to be able to just kind of show up and get right into camp. Having a baby, it was nice to kind of get settled and get back on a routine before things started.”
The message from general manager Bill Guerin and Wild coaches when Hartman returned to the lineup in early March was that the second chances were gone. Hartman was fine playing up to the edge, but he and the team could no longer afford to go over it. For the regular season’s last two dozen games or so, that’s the player they got.
After returning from the suspension, Hartman played some effective hockey down the stretch, and after resisting the Knights’ attempts to goad him into penalties early in their series, averaged a point per game in the playoffs. Wild coaches expect more of the same from him this season, which begins with the season opener against Columbus on Oct. 11.
“It’s no mystery that if he plays with the intensity level and the discipline and the details he played with in the playoffs, he’s going to be a major impact for our team,” Wild coach John Hynes said.
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