ST. PAUL, Minn. — Like a 1945 Bordeaux, Mats Zuccarello keeps getting better with age.

How else do you explain Zuccarello averaging 0.68 points per game up until age 32 and 0.91 points per game from age 33 to his current 38?

Well, in his seventh year with the Minnesota Wild, Zuccarello would be the first to point out that having Kirill Kaprizov as his linemate is a big reason for his continued growth since his early years as a very productive New York Ranger.

At the end of last season, Zuccarello was peppered with questions about whether Kaprizov, his closest friend on the Wild, would sign an extension with Minnesota.

“I think the most important thing for him is that I get a job or some kind of salary from this team for the next eight years,” he joked. “Other than that, I don’t think much matters to him.”

Kaprizov has since signed an eight-year extension, so on Friday, we asked Zuccarello if Kaprizov will get his wish and see his pal stick around for another eight or nine years to coincide with the whopping $136 million contract.

“I keep telling him someday I gotta leave. I can’t play forever,” Zuccarello said. “I love playing with Kirill. We play well together, but he’s played really well without me and someday will have to (permanently).”

Zuccarello was unavailable to talk with reporters throughout training camp and the start of the season because of a core muscle surgery that eventually required surgery and carved off the first 15 games of his season. That made Friday the first chance to ask Zuccarello about his future.

Despite still being an exceptional playmaker and top-line winger on the Wild, Zuccarello said he hasn’t decided whether he’ll play beyond this season — the final year of a two-year, $8.25 million contract ($4.125 million average annual value).

“I’ll take the season to see how I feel,” Zuccarello told The Athletic. “If I feel that I’m good enough to play at this level, I would like to play. If I feel like I’m not good enough, then I just don’t want to be a guy to take up a spot and is not good enough.”

Zuccarello said he has the full support of his wife, Marlene, who is pregnant with their third child and due in February, to keep playing.

“It’s just more on me in terms of how I’m feeling and if I’m good enough,” said Zuccarello, before adding in his typical self-deprecating manner, “I’m old, you know? I don’t want to look old on the ice.”

The Wild got off to a difficult 5-7-3 start without Zuccarello and are 2-0-1 with him back in the lineup. He has two assists in those two games, creating blistering one-timer goals from Kaprizov against the New York Islanders and Matt Boldy against the San Jose Sharks.

It’s refreshing to have Zuccarello’s humor back in the locker room, too.

For instance, when Brock Faber took Nazem Kadri’s knee to the nether region last weekend, the Wild defenseman said he and Zuccarello almost immediately “shared words” in the locker room between periods.

“Now he knows how it feels,” Zuccarello told us.

That reference is to last Nov. 14, when Zuccarello was hospitalized and ended up missing a month after rupturing a testicle courtesy of a Faber slap shot against the Montreal Canadiens.

Still, Zuccarello hasn’t been overly ecstatic about his performance in his first three games back. He called the passes to Kaprizov and Boldy “just a couple plays.”

Stepping into an NHL season after missing more than a month and all of training camp isn’t easy for any player, let alone a 38-year-old. He’s still trying to find his timing and keep the injury out of his head so he feels comfortable pushing on the ice more and more.

“It’s not an ideal situation, for sure, especially when you felt like you were really prepared and had a really good summer working out,” Zuccarello said. “And especially when you get at my age, it takes a little longer to recover and little longer to get 100 percent. So I’m still managing it and seeing what I can do and cannot do. And obviously it takes some time for me to get into the flow of the game and feel comfortable, especially with the puck and knowing where everyone is and stuff like that.

“It’s not fun. You feel like you wasted four months of the summer hard working for pretty much nothing.”

Zuccarello hasn’t created nearly as much as he’s wanted to.

“I’m no (Connor) McDavid or Kirill Kaprizov, but you expect more from yourself in terms of just helping out all over the ice, not just offense,” said Zuccarello, who is fifth in Wild history with 234 assists and eighth with 337 points. “When you have that injury a little bit, you want to try it out, see what you can do and what you can’t do. I think it’s just a mindset that once you get over that and get your hands and head on the same page, that it’s gonna come. But it’s hard to practice that. It’s got to be coming in games. You gotta get that game feeling, game speed. So it’s gonna take a little bit of time, but I’ll use the games well and hopefully it’ll go faster than I think.”

The hardest part of the Wild getting off to a tough start with Zuccarello out of the lineup was that he wasn’t able to help or really speak up in the locker room. He reminds everyone, though, that in 2014, when he and the Rangers went to the Stanley Cup Final, New York got off to a 3-7 start.

“So there’s some tweaks here and there, and it can turn things around pretty quick,” he said. “The hardest thing is when you get into a major spiral, so everyone’s got to calm down, you know, have some fun. The only thing that can turn things around is to enjoy coming into the rink, enjoy the challenges that we have. If we do, we can turn this around.”

For that to happen, Kaprizov and Zuccarello will need to rediscover their uncanny chemistry. Kaprizov, Zuccarello admitted, is not happy with the start of the season.

In 18 games, Kaprizov is tied for 14th in the NHL with 22 points and tied for 15th with 10 goals. At five-on-five, his expected goals of 2.5 per 60 minutes is fourth-lowest on the Wild, and his 2.75 expected goals against per 60 minutes is eighth-highest and well above his career average of 2.19.

During Tuesday’s overtime loss to San Jose, a game in which Zuccarello was checked off the puck before the overtime winner, the Kaprizov-Marco Rossi-Zuccarello line was out-attempted 17-3 at five-on-five.

Now Rossi’s sidelined week-to-week with a lower-body injury that he initially sustained Oct. 18 against the Philadelphia Flyers, but which has gotten worse and worse. Old linemate Ryan Hartman centered Kaprizov and Zuccarello during Friday’s practice and is expected to be in that spot Saturday against the Anaheim Ducks.

“For me and Kirill, we want to contribute a little bit more on both sides of the ice and create a little bit more and be a little bit smarter,” Zuccarelli said. “I know Kirill’s not happy with how he’s playing and doesn’t think he’s playing well, but he’s still (near) the top of the league in scoring and he’s gonna find his groove. You know, he had surgery last year, too, so it takes time.”

In fact, even though Zuccarello and Kaprizov had similar injuries, Zuccarello said, “Kirill had a little bigger surgery than I had, so we’ll get there. But you know these star players. They’re never happy with the way they’re playing. And that’s Kirill now, and that’s what makes him so good.”

Hartman, 31, has scored four goals and two assists in 18 games. Coach John Hynes is looking for more consistency from Hartman and wants him to be better in the faceoff circle, be more engaged physically, keep his feet moving and get to the net front. He feels that if Hartman plays that type of game, Kaprizov-Hartman-Zuccarello has the makings of a quality line while Rossi recovers.

Hartman did score 34 goals, mostly playing with Kaprizov and Zuccarello, in 2021-22.

“I was younger back then,” Zuccarello said. “I’ve always said it doesn’t matter who you play with. You try and play the same way. For us, I think it’s the most important thing to play a simple game, and obviously more you’re thinking about wanting to produce and helping the team, the more you’re going to be standing.

“So we just have to go out, have fun, play the simple game, and hopefully things can open up. We just have to be OK with that. Not every game is going to be a 10 out of 10 game. Some games are. But other games maybe we will defend this game, and the next game we’ll score a couple. That’s how good the league is. That’s how it’s been all my career.”