It was a win-win situation when the Minnesota Wild made what could become an annual preseason trip to Duluth. The act of bonding a team together for a couple of days provides a break from training camp and exhibition games and can serve as a positive influence before the start of the regular season. Meanwhile, it’s positive public relations to show Northern Minnesota and the Duluth area that the Wild are the state’s team, not just a neat logo on a Twin Cities operation.

It’s also a major plus for the North Shore hideaway lodging facility, and for the hockey fans who chose to attend the open, and free, Wild practice at AMSOIL Arena.

There are a lot of reasons to be enthused about the Wild this season. Not the least of those is that general manager Chuck Fletcher showed the patience and good sense not to tear apart the team for reckless trades. He made a couple of key acquisitions, and added the fine-tuning touch coach Mike Yeo needs to put together a consistently competitive franchise. The divisional realignment is another huge plus.

“We’re excited about the upcoming season,” said Fletcher. “We should have a fun division, with the Stanley Cup champs (Chicago), the St. Louis Blues, who are as good as any team in the NHL right now, and from a geographical standpoint, teams like Winnipeg, Dallas and Denver, who will become big rivals.”

That means so long to so many long-distance, midnight-finishing road trips to Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver, as well. The resurrection of old-time North Stars rivalries with the Blackhawks, Blues and Colorado, as well as the built-in intensity of the Dallas (former North) Stars, is a huge plus, and Fletcher may be less aware that Winnipeg, while never a huge rival of the North Stars, was indeed a huge geographic rival of the old Minnesota Fighting Saints in the World Hockey Association -- the days of Bobby Hull, Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson on the best line in hockey.

The good-news/bad-news finish to last season was frustrating, but the facts remain that a couple of crippling injuries prevented what might have been an impressive playoff rush. Dany Heatley went out with an injury, and the timing couldn’t have been worse. The Wild were leading their division and clicking on all cylinders, and Heatley was finally looking like his old sniper self when he went down, and the Wild power play went down as well.

In the closing two weeks, newly acquired Jason Pominville was hurt in a cheapshot incident that knocked him out for the rest of the season before Wild fans could learn to appreciate how much he added to the roster. In fact, if you lined up the Wild offense, you could make the case that Zach Parise, Mikko Koivu, Heatley and Pominville were the most dangerous scorers, and to remove two of the four was simply not fair.

The ensuing drop meant the Wild had to win their final game of the season to grab onto the eighth and final playoff spot in the West, and that earned the Wild the opportunity to face the Chicago Blackhawks, who were the best team in the entire NHL. The Wild might even have made a run at an upset, but ace goaltender Niklas Backstrom suffered a badly pulled groin during warmups for the first game of the series, and he was done. Josh Harding did a great job as backup, but he, too, was hurt during a pileup after winning Game 3.

No teams that advanced to succeed in the playoffs could have done so if you remove two of their top four goal-scorers and their starting goaltender. So just retaining those key players and staying healthy might secure the Wild as a contender. At the same time, key additions like Matt Cooke, Keith Ballard, and Nino Niederreiter could be difference-makers. Add in the potential of former UMD star Justin Fontaine, who has proven he can score and play the whole game at both ends of the rink while at the Wild’s top farm club, and you have to like the balance and potential of this roster.

“We think we have good balance through four lines, and on defense,” said Fletcher, before the Wild hit the AMSOIL ice Monday morning.

“We’ve been impressed with Niederreiter’s play. He played well in the American League, and he scored well in the World Championships. He was probably a little overwhelmed when he played a little in the NHL at age 19. He’s big, at 210 pounds, and he liked to go to the net and battle with defensemen. I would say that he and Dany Heatley probably have the heaviest shots on the team.”

Niederreiter scored six goals in the World Championships for his native Switzerland, which, if your recall, was the surprise of the whole tournament, going undefeated all the way to the Gold Medal game, where it lost to a Sweden team reinforced by some players like the Sedin twins of Vancouver, after early Stanley Cup exits.

With the season getting underway for real Thursday night, against the Los Angeles Kings at Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, the judging of the Wild will commence immediately. It won’t hurt their fan base that they now have an enhanced and enthusiastic backing from the Duluth area -- for “our” team in the NHL.