MN Wild Nearing Deal with ‘One of Us’ Wisconsin Captain

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Minnesota Wild free agent target, Ben Dexheimer - University of Wisconsin
Credit: Lucas Peltier-Imagn Images

The Minnesota Wild will play the final game of the 2025-26 NHL regular season on Tuesday night, at home, against the Anaheim Ducks. Then, they will officially turn their attention to the first round of the NHL Playoffs, and their opponent — the Dallas Stars.

Of course, unofficially, the Wild have been focused on the Stars all spring. Hell, the matchup has pretty much been written on the postseason wall for weeks now.

That’s why — just like Monday night, an eventual 6-3 loss to the St. Louis Blues — the MN Wild are expected to put their B-Squad out on the ice Tuesday in the regular season finale against Anaheim.

Minnesota Wild trying to stay healthy in game 82

The last thing Bill Guerin and John Hynes want to do in game 82 is play Kirill Kaprizov, Matt Boldy, Quinn Hughes, Brock Faber or Joel Eriksson Ek into an injury.

Thus, we’ll likely see a lot of ice time again for guys trying to make the playoff lineup like Danila Yurov, Bobby Brink, Michael McCarron and Jeff Petry along with recent AHL call-ups Nicolas Aube-Kubel, Hunter Haight, Ben Jones and Matt Kiersted.

And don’t forget about Viking Gustafsson Nyberg, one of the Minnesota Wild’s recent college signings out of UConn. He made his NHL debut Monday, and is expected in the lineup again tonight.

While Guerin is done signing prospects who will play for the Wild this season, the president of hockey operations isn’t finished turning college stars into NHL prospects just yet.

Wild zeroing in on Wisconsin defenseman, Ben Dexheimer

In fact, according to Michael Russo (The Athletic), Guerin has his target locked in on 23-year-old Edina native and Blake School grad, Ben Dexheimer — a college free agent defenseman who just finished his senior season at Wisconsin, where he wore the “C”.

Originally, Russo reported that the MN Wild were planning to sign Dexheimer to a two-year entry-level deal that would kick in next season (see below). However, Michael has since tweeted that Minnesota will actually burn the first year of Ben’s deal, via ATO (Amatuer Tryout).

Likely a prerequisite to choosing Minnesota, this means we can expect to see the Badger captain in an Iowa Wild sweater this week, during at least one of their final regular season games. Then, Dexheimer will enter next season on the final year of his new deal.

League sources say the Wild are closing in on signing University of Wisconsin captain Ben Dexheimer to an entry-level contract starting next season.

Michael Russo – The Athletic

As Edina’s Ben Dexheimer told @JoeSmithNHL, if #mnwild reached out, it’d be “amazing to play for them.”

Hearing Wild close to signing the Wisconsin captain to a 1-year deal starting next year (ATO this weekend in Iowa). Stramel’s ex-roomie.

Michael Russo – @RussoHockey on X

Related: New Injury Could Shift Outlook of Wild vs Stars Playoff Series

During his four years in Madison, Dexheimer played 149 games, scored 13 goals and assisted on 71 others, for a total of 84 points.

As a captain in 2025-26, Ben posted arguably his best season with the Badgers — scoring a career-high 7 goals and tying his sophomore season high for points, at 28.

Dexheimer seems like a Bill Guerin guy

Oh, and he also scored the game-winning goal in overtime of the NCAA Tournament, to send the Badgers to the Frozen Four. Obviously, the Minnesota Wild were watching.

According to an interview with Joe Smith (The Athletic) over the weekend, Dexheimer is a self-described “late-bloomer”, which is why he floated through the draft process out of high school relatively undetected, noting that the Juniors route “was always going to be the path”, as it gave him more time to develop.

He was right. After he led Wisconsin to the verge of a Natty (lost to Denver in the National Championship), Ben quickly became one of the top college free agents on the market.

While he doesn’t hold a personal connection to his hometown Minnesota Wild (he’s a Blues fan), he appears to be coming back to the state of hockey. If you watched his postgame interview, after potting the above OT winner, you’ll quickly see that he’s a Billy G. type of guy.

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