After recovering from a serious injury to his chest and shoulder, Travis Boyd was a free agent looking for an NHL team that would look at his long resume and say, “This is just the kind of guy we need.” That team just happened to be the one Boyd grew up watching. ADVERTISEMENT “If I’m fortunate enough to make the team, running onto the ice that first game and to hear the announcer say, ‘Here come your Minnesota Wild,’ I mean, I got the chills going down the back of my neck just saying that out loud,” he said.
Boyd, 31, is one of a handful of NHL veterans the Wild brought in this summer, mostly as free agents, to help shore up its depth after missing the postseason for just the second time in 12 seasons last year. The four-year Gophers player from Hopkins, a sixth-round entry draft pick by Washington in 2011, has 47 goals and 118 points in 296 NHL games and a Stanley Cup ring from his rookie season in Washington, where he played in eight games, including a big postseason win at Pittsburgh, as a rookie in 2017-18. Boyd was scheduled to play in his second preseason game Wednesday night in Dallas.
He earned an assist in the Wild’s first exhibition, a 5-2 victory at Winnipeg last weekend. He signed a one-year, two-way contract on July 1 after missing most of 2023-24 with a serious pectoral injury, “torn off,” in his words, on a check into the boards by Colorado’s Josh Manson. ADVERTISEMENT The two-way deal is Boyd’s first in seven years.
“This is my 10th .
