By Chad Graff

Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.

Even during the offseason, Minnesota Wild coach Bruce Boudreau keeps his television tuned to the NHL Network to make sure he’s up on what’s happening around the league.

But with free agency ending in early July and training camps not starting until September, what he sees mostly on his TV are replays of playoff games.

That means on more than a few occasions, Boudreau has tuned in to relive the Wild’s disappointing first-round series loss to the St. Louis Blues.

“As soon as I see it on, I sit there and try to dissect it all over again,” he said. “Then I go to the office and pull up the computer and start looking at games there as well. When you get over it is when the season gets closer. Then you start thinking about training camp and your juices start flowing about the upcoming year.”

For now, Boudreau is trapped between last season’s playoff disappointment and this season’s excitement about a revamped team that will come to training camp in six weeks.

After delivering a $2,500 check to the Wounded Warriors Project at Plymouth Ice Center on Friday, Boudreau sat down to talk with the Pioneer Press.

Do you kick yourself for anything that went wrong in the playoffs, or do you think that if one goal goes differently in Game 1 then maybe the whole series is different?

A lot of times I’ve kicked myself. What did I do that for? But you nailed it on the head. Game 1, a missed opportunity here and they scored. I remember, quite frankly, at the 10-minute mark of the overtime when they take a timeout to scrape (the ice). I’m sitting back there watching both teams going at it as hard as they are. And I’m saying to myself whoever loses this game is in trouble. I thought it was going to be a power surge for whoever won and it was going to be a really depressing point for whoever lost. Unfortunately, we lost. I don’t share that with anyone on the bench, that’s just the thought going through my head during the game.