ST. PAUL, Minn. — John Hynes enjoys working with young players. They can be a pivotal part of a team, especially in a salary-cap world.

But the Wild coach is in a spot now where — partially due to injuries — he’s going to have to rely on a bunch of them early in the season. Case in point: Thursday’s season opener, with Hunter Haight making his NHL debut, plus Liam Ohgren, David Jiricek and Zeev Buium all in the lineup. Danila Yurov should make his debut soon, too, perhaps Monday night against the Los Angeles Kings. Jesper Wallstedt could make his season debut Monday, too, and should make a couple of  starts this week due to back-to-backs.

Is there some uneasiness that comes with that?

“Oh, for sure,” Hynes said.

The Wild are not in a rebuilding phase like the Chicago Blackhawks or San Jose Sharks. There’s pressure here to not only make the postseason, but also, as owner Craig Leipold put it, “be more than just a playoff team.” Ten straight years without a series win will do that to a franchise.

That’s why, as much fun as it sounds to inject so much youth into a lineup, there’s risk, too. And the Wild can’t just throw them to the wolves.

“It’s balancing this, right?” Hynes said. “It’s just, ‘Play the kids,’ but this is the hardest league in the world. It’s the best league in the world. The difference sometimes between younger players and veteran players. Veteran players, they’ve been around, they know how to play, they know what the game is about. The NHL is a different beast. It’s not college. It’s not junior. No matter how good you were at other levels, you’re playing against the best guys in the world.

“So you have to balance, ‘Are they ready to play?’ If they’re ready to play, we’ll play them. But we also can’t just put nine kids in the lineup and think that all of a sudden, they’re going to be ready to go. We’re not in a rebuilding situation. We’re in a situation where we want to be a competitive hockey team. So it’s going to be a balance. It has to be.”

The Wild gave Ohgren and Yurov every opportunity in training camp to snag a top-six spot in the lineup. There was room, thanks to the injury to Mats Zuccarello. But neither knocked the door in and seized it. They’re on the team, partly because of necessity, but it was telling that they were both outplayed in camp by Haight, who secured his fourth-line role only after Nico Sturm’s back injury worsened to the point where he’ll miss significant time.

If the Wild’s young guys can’t handle it early in the season, it’ll be incumbent on president of hockey operations and GM Bill Guerin to be aggressive in making a move to bolster their lineup. Minnesota needed every single point from its remarkable start last season just to make the playoffs. Guerin already showed that he wasn’t necessarily satisfied with the current lineup, considering the Wild pursued Jack Roslovic before the winger signed a one-year deal with Edmonton last week.

This is not just about keeping the Wild afloat this season. It’s about the health and development of their top prospects.

It had to be a kick to the teeth for Jiricek to be scratched Saturday night against his former Columbus Blue Jackets. But Jonas Brodin was ready to return from offseason surgery, Hynes wanted to keep Buium playing with the steady Jared Spurgeon, and the reality is even though Jiricek was plus-3 in St. Louis, he made three huge errors that could have resulted in goals if the Blues even managed to get a shot off.

That’s why longtime defenseman and current player development adviser Alex Goligoski spent Saturday’s home opener in the scratches’ suite next to Jiricek, going over every detail of the game with him in real time.

“If they’re not ready, we’re not going to force them. That’s it,” Guerin said during training camp. “Through my playing career and then working in player development over the years, you’ve just seen it time and time again: If a player’s not ready, he’s not ready. That’s OK. That’s OK! The worst thing we can do is force-feed a kid in the league, because this league is unforgiving. Young players can lose confidence in an instant, and it can take months to get it back. Or they might not ever.”

The Wild showed that patience with Marco Rossi, sending him to AHL Iowa his rookie season after the first-round pick had just one point in his first 19 games. He went to Iowa and developed further over 53 games. It was the best thing for him. Rossi hasn’t missed a Wild game since and is now their top-line center with Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy.

Rossi is an impact player at a very important position. That’s what you expect from first-round picks. It’s vital in building a contender.

“We need guys that come in and make an impact and do something, not just make the team and take a seat in the locker room,” Guerin said this past summer. “Help us. Do something.”

Buium is a great example. The No. 12 pick from 2024 has the pedigree of being a two-time world junior champion, a national champion and Hobey Baker finalist at the University of Denver. Teammates rave about how special Buium is, how he can be a game-breaker; you saw it on the rookie’s first career NHL goal during a third-period power play Saturday. You add him to the top four and power play and all of a sudden, it’s another building block. But Buium isn’t immune to growing pains, and he plays a very demanding position, especially starting the season paired with Spurgeon.

That’s why the Wild are trying to do whatever they can to support him. Give Boldy credit for taking initiative and inviting the rookie to live with him once he arrived in the Twin Cities in late July. It made a world of difference to Buium in his comfort level off the ice, he said, and that translates to the ice, too.

“It’s a hard adjustment from college — it’s not easy,” Boldy said. “It’s a big jump. We’re treated so well here. Little things like food. College, you go to the dining hall and everything is made for you, you choose from 10 choices, and that’s not the case when you come here. At home, you cook dinner. Can only UberEats so many times. It’s a big jump away from the rink. You’ve got to grow up quick.”

The veterans are trying to help Yurov along, too. Vladimir Tarasenko and Kaprizov, each of whom made the jump from the KHL to the NHL, spent quite a bit of time with Yurov after Friday’s practice. Yurov spends time at Tarasenko’s home and goes to dinner with Kaprizov. It’s hard to find two better mentors for the 21-year-old Russian than that.

What the young players are learning, too, even more than pep talks, is watching how the veterans play. They’ve seen guys like Marcus Foligno get down and block a shot in the waning seconds of the first period in St. Louis. They see Rossi going to the dirty areas of the ice. They watch Ryan Hartman make an impact all over the ice in an attempt to help the Wild make up for losing Sturm.

“From top to bottom, our team plays the right way,” Boldy said. “We don’t have anyone that’s on their own page that wants to do their own thing. For young guys to see that, you see guys doing the right things over and over, it just sets the tone. As a young guy, if you can play that way, that’s how you stay in the lineup. Points come, chances come, but that’s the biggest thing.”

‘Riser’ reflects on time in Minnesota

Doug Risebrough was thinking late last month when Kaprizov signed his $136 million contract just how much has changed in the 25 years since the inaugural Wild season.

Kaprizov’s salary the first four years of the deal — the max $19.1 million he’s allowed to make —  “would have been our payroll.”

“I would say the first three years of the franchise was hovering around 20,” said Risebrough, the Wild’s GM from 2000-09. “At the end of the day, we didn’t have any free agents that were signing big then. I guess Brian Rolston would have been the first.”

Rolston signed a four-year deal with the Wild at $3.3 million a season. He lost the first year because of the NHL lockout, but at the time, that was the biggest deal in Wild history. Rolston eclipsed 30 goals three times in Minnesota. Today, Yakov Trenin makes more.

On Saturday night, the Wild brought back Risebrough, the original coaching staff of Jacques Lemaire, Mario Tremblay and Mike Ramsey, and longtime goalie coach Bob Mason to kick off the 25th anniversary season of the franchise.

Those were special times.

“You’ve got to remember, we were an expansion franchise in an existing market,” Risebrough said. “There was a lot of doubts, like, ‘It’s gone once, why is it going to stay the second time?’ But it was just like a perfect storm. I mean, getting Jacques was huge. It added some credibility, just in terms of instantaneously, and then it was a great environment for all of us. I had rebounded from a bad job in Calgary to all of a sudden thinking I’m doing the right things. I’m surrounding myself with so many people that had won with Mario, Guy Lapointe, Jacques.

“And then the embryonic (relationship with) the fans. I still remember that there would be that point in the game where the fans would just start standing up, usually, like five minutes to go in the game, and they’d stand up and they cheer. So they really loved the team. Everything was so positive. Just positive, positive memories.”

The 2003 season, when the Wild became the first and only team in NHL history to rally from two 3-1 series deficits to advance to the conference final, still remains the highlight of this franchise.

“When I hired Jacques and the coaching staff, we talked about, ‘What’s the progression here?’” Risebrough recalled. “And we were talking like a five-year thing. We should be able to do the right things and get better with the younger players, the style of play, and in five years we should be competitive enough to make the playoffs. Now we’re in Year 3, and we’re doing really well.

“I remember, with about 30 games before the trade deadline, Jacques gave me a call. He had to speak to me, and I’m like, ‘What’s this about?’ So I get down there, and he’s got this worried look on his face, and he says, ‘You’re gonna have to do something. You’re gonna have to trade somebody.’ I go, ‘Jacques, we’ve got a chance to make the playoffs. Why would I trade somebody?’ He says, ‘We’re gonna make the playoffs and we’re gonna win in the playoffs, so trade somebody away.’”

Risebrough laughs at the memory. In the end, the Wild decided to ride it out. They didn’t trade away anybody or trade for somebody at the deadline.

“We didn’t kind of cripple it. We just let it ride,” Risebrough said. “And being down 3-1 against Colorado and Vancouver engaged the fans even more. They were with us for the ride. I still remember (Pioneer Press columnist) Tom Powers in Vancouver in Game 7 when we were down two and Pascal Dupuis tied the game. The media was sitting right in front of me. Tom was typing away ending our season, and he folded the computer. Now we score the goal, and he looks up at me in the box behind them, gives me a look and opens up the computer and starts typing. This isn’t over. Usually it was.”

Risebrough loved getting an inside peek at the Wild’s new practice facility. It was quite a contrast to the early years when the Wild practiced at Parade Ice Garden.

“This is the progression,” he said. “The franchise is mature. More money’s in the franchise. Players are making more money. Management’s franchise values are going up, so this is what’s needed. In those days, it was simple. I mean, fewer people, but that’s OK, that’s the way it was. It wasn’t a disadvantage then. It would be a disadvantage now.

“What I remember most from back then is the relationship that the players had with the fans. It was truly like their team, and the players were good with the fans. They were kind of underdogs. And they needed that to get themselves confidence and advance their careers. This is a special place.”