NHL
Left: Josh Harding with son Jayden after the 2024 state championship. Right: Harding in 2013 during his final season in the NHL. Photos courtesy of the Harding family and by Jeff Gross / Getty Images
EDINA, Minn. — When Josh Harding’s name comes up, whether it’s from a Minnesota Wild fan or anyone who’s paid attention to the NHL over the past two decades, the question that’s inevitably asked is, “How’s he doing?”
The good news is Harding looks great and, more importantly, feels great, and that’s something Wild fans in particular have a chance to see for themselves if they attend Tuesday’s game against the Nashville Predators, when Harding and fellow goaltending alums Niklas Backstrom and Devan Dubnyk return as part of the franchise’s season-long 25th anniversary celebration.
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“It almost feels like a different life, to tell you the truth, of what I was dealing with to where I am now,” says Harding, whose Wild career ended prematurely at the age of 30, sitting at a local coffee shop and thinking back on it.
There was a time when Harding was a hotshot goalie prospect and the organization’s future between the pipes.
In 2002, the Wild’s third-ever draft, Harding was selected in the second round. The next year, he was named the WHL’s Goalie of the Year and Player of the Year. During the NHL’s 2004-05 lockout, he burst onto the AHL scene with a rookie year that featured a 2.01 goals-against average and .930 save percentage. The southpaw was athletic, acrobatic and would often draw oohs and ahhs by gloving down blistering shots.
In the fall of 2012, though, Harding’s life was turned upside down when he went for an MRI exam for his neck. Initial pain in that vicinity had turned into dizziness, seeing black spots and numbness in his right leg.
It was Sept. 27, and the Wild’s team doctor at the time, Dan Peterson, discovered abnormalities and summoned Harding back for an MRI of his brain. When Peterson discovered lesions, Harding was informed that same evening that the medical staff thought he had multiple sclerosis, an incurable autoimmune disease in which the body randomly attacks and eats away the protective lining of nerves and causes them to scar.
He absorbed the information like he was being told he had a sprained knee. He just wanted to know how to attack the disease so he could continue playing hockey.
“I just signed a new three-year deal,” Harding, now 41, recalls. “I was excited. I knew that I was going to be loyal here. The Minnesota Wild gave me the chance, and forever I’ll be grateful for that. And I knew I wasn’t going anywhere. And all of a sudden, you find out this life-changing news. I was probably a little bit hardheaded about thinking that I could be the one to beat this and keep going. ‘It’s no big deal,’ I thought. But that, I think, was just my competitive nature coming out.”
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Harding pauses to gather his thoughts about the grueling final three years of his career that ultimately landed him in a Charlotte hospital bed, gaunt, dehydrated and potentially close to losing his life.
“Looking back at it, it probably would’ve been a lot smarter to just hang it up (in 2012) and then really focus on my health for my family,” says Harding, the father of 18-year-old stepson Talan, 12-year-old daughter Paisley and 9-year-old son Jayden. “But when you’re in the grind of it and you’ve worked hard to get where you’re at, sometimes you’re a little bit near-sighted on what your top priorities are.
“It was a big challenge, and nobody on the outside other than my wife truly understood what I had to do to navigate a disease that there was no playbook. I had to try to figure out all this stuff on my own, and I was a test dummy for it. It just seemed like taking a new medication here and there, everything kind of works against each other and then now you have to take another one, another one.
“It got to the point where everything just became too much, where at the end of my career, I wasn’t even myself because I was so worried about how I was being viewed. I was overthinking what I was going to say to people because I felt like I was sticking out like a sore thumb. It was a very, very tough time. Like I said, I should have just retired in 2012. The writing was on the wall, and I think I was too blind to see it. You keep getting put in the hospital. You keep getting loaded up with IVs after games, losing major weight. There was a lot behind the scenes that I wouldn’t wish upon anybody.”
The diagnosis came during the 2012 lockout. Harding kept it a secret for two months as he and his now-wife, then-fiancee, Sara, tried to first gather a treatment plan.
Harding then notified teammates one by one and the organization.
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When the lockout ended in January 2013, Harding’s first start was a 24-save shutout over Dallas. But after just three more appearances, the reality of his medical situation became apparent. He had to take 2 ½ months off, playing just one more regular-season game in relief of Backstrom, then starting all five playoff games after being thrust into action unexpectedly when Backstrom hurt his knee during pregame warmups minutes before Game 1 of the first round against the Chicago Blackhawks.
The next season was a storybook start for Harding.
In 29 games, he was 18-7-3 with a 1.65 goals-against average and .933 save percentage. He was considered a Vezina Trophy front-runner.
“I felt like my game was improving and I was more dialed in on the ice than ever,” Harding says. “I was on this medication where I was getting injected every 28 days. Everything was going fine and I was thinking, ‘I finally kind of have this.’ But then all of a sudden, all these symptoms would be coming on during games.”
With every injection, Harding had to get an MRI taken of his brain and a blood test to monitor for signs of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, a brain infection that is often fatal. The odds of him getting the infection kept increasing. It led to intense stress. So that December, Harding and his MS doctors decided he needed to abruptly get off the drug.
“And that was when everything kind of went haywire. They had to flush everything out of you, and now you don’t have any medication in you,” Harding says.
He played New Year’s Eve 2013 — a 2-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues — and would never play another NHL game.
Shortly after, as he was going medication-free while trying to get the previous drug out of his system, Harding had an MS flare-up. Trying to walk down his driveway, Harding lost his balance. His left leg went to the inside of his right, and he fell hard onto the concrete. He managed to get up and went into the house, and his horrified wife, Sara, yelled, “What the hell did you do to your elbow?”
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Harding was leaking blood and his right elbow was the size of a baseball. He didn’t know because he couldn’t feel a thing on the right side of his body.
“I just kept hitting roadblocks,” Harding says.
Nevertheless, Harding planned to make a comeback in the winter of the 2014-15 season. On Nov. 30, debuting for AHL Iowa in San Antonio, Harding made 50 saves in a 4-3 overtime loss. During the game, he took a shot off the mask.
“I just saw black dots,” Harding says. “I had to kind of regain my focus just to try to figure out where the puck was.”
A week later, Harding played two periods in Charlotte. He struggled to get off the ice and was rushed to the hospital.
As Harding tells the story, he begins twirling his wedding band on his left hand over and over.
His voice shakes. Tears start to flow.
“To have your wife see you on FaceTime and immediately buy a one-way ticket to Charlotte was horrible,” Harding says as he struggles for words. “It was so bad getting put on six, seven, eight bags of IV because you’re bare-boned and dehydrated.
“That was the moment where it’s like, ‘This isn’t worth it anymore.’ I probably should have realized that before it got to that point. But when hockey is your life and what you’ve always wanted to be and you’re finally there, it’ll take a lot to get you out of that. But the writing was on the wall before that. It wasn’t the first time I was put in the hospital. When she walked in my room and I looked at her and saw how she looked at me — and she knows me better than anybody on this planet — that was the ending point.
“There are so many things that so many people do not realize that I went through, and the one person that did get to see it all is my wife, and that’s probably why I do get a little emotional talking about it, because I put her through hell for a while. I should have retired way before.”
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Harding did quietly retire after that 2014-15 season, with 60 NHL victories under his belt. He owns the Wild’s third-best all-time goals-against average of 2.45 and is tied for the second-best save percentage of .918.
“It kind of goes through my mind pretty regularly what would have happened with my career if I was healthy,” Harding says. “Where would I be right now? And one of the things that bothers me the most, I guess, is I would’ve loved for all my kids to see me play, to go through that style of life and see Dad do what I feel like I was pretty good at. Paisley was a baby in the (2013) playoffs. Jay wasn’t born. So that one always sticks to me. I really wish that things were different, but again, you can’t change. Everything happens for a reason.
“And I feel like it’s made me a way better dad. I feel like I can share some challenges that I went through with people around me and remind them to never give up.”
Today, Harding is an assistant coach for the Edina High boys hockey team.
At a time when Harding needed it, Curt Giles, the legendary Edina hockey coach and former North Stars defenseman, gave him a new purpose in life.
During one of his comeback attempts, Harding remembers skating on his own at Braemar Arena, pushing Paisley around the ice in her car seat.
“I was giving her rides and putting her up on my shoulders, and Curt came to the bench and we chatted and he told me, ‘If anything ever happens with this hockey thing and you have to call it quits, we’d love to have you here,’” Harding says. “So I owe a lot to Curt, with bringing me in, because I knew that focusing on my health was No. 1 after I retired.
“But I do love the game of hockey. So when I did retire, I took him up on that offer of coaching with them, and it’s something that I didn’t know how much I’d actually love.”
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In 2015, Harding began working with the goalies. He now coaches the forwards as an assistant coach for the perennial contender. In his time there, Edina has won Class AA state championships in 2019 and 2024 and was the runner-up in 2023.
“Going all the way back to my freshman year, I really didn’t know a whole lot about high school hockey, and I just went into tryouts and he was one of the first persons that would come up to me during those training practices and boost my confidence a little bit,” says Mason West, the Blackhawks first-round pick who this Friday will quarterback Edina High School in the Class 6A state quarterfinal against Eden Prairie at Osseo High. “He was just super nice and welcoming, especially when I made the team my freshman year. And then, obviously, I think he didn’t want to put too much on my plate. I think he just tried to ease me in.
“I think he does a good job of creating really special relationships where, I mean, I’ll always be able to talk to him whether it’s I’m playing football or when I’m playing hockey after that … but also in the outside world.”
West, 18, says Harding finds the perfect balance of holding players accountable when they need to play better but boosting their confidence when they’re playing well.
Like many of his teammates, though, West didn’t remember much about Harding’s career with the Wild.
But West has looked him up, seen his stats and watched highlights — and read up on how his career ended.
“It’s just another reason to look up to him because there’ve been a couple times during the season where he’s had to deal with that, and as players and a team, we were there for him, but he never complains,” West says. “We just see that hunger in him when he’s coaching. You can see that he loves hockey and that he takes his job seriously coaching every day in practice. He’s just trying to help us chase our highest goal.”
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“I love these kids,” Harding says. “I will do anything for them to try to give them every possible opportunity to reach the highest in hockey. I also take a lot of pride in helping these kids off the ice and become men.
“At first, this kept me in the game. I’m used to being in a locker room, I’m used to being part of a team. And since Curt has brought me on, it’s kind of patched up that hole that I was missing. With the illness I have, I also feel I can help give these kids life lessons. When they think it’s the end of the world that they’re not scoring goals or something’s wrong in their life, I can give them a little bit of a reminder that it’s not the end of the world here.”
Harding recently found himself a day job, too.
John Celenza and Tucker Wright, the CEO and president of Cizzle Brands, are hockey guys from Canada and have hydration drinks called Cwench, as well as supplements, snacks and pastas. The company has deals with USA Hockey and Minnesota Hockey and is growing rapidly with products in fitness centers like Lifetime. Harding is serving as a regional sales manager.
Other than that, Harding is enjoying life as a husband and dad. Talan’s a freshman at University of St. Thomas. Paisley is his dancer. This past Saturday, Harding was juggling Jayden’s basketball practice in the morning and flag football game in the afternoon.
Harding’s a Wild diehard and brings his kids to games every season.
“We bleed Minnesota Wild,” Harding says.
Harding has been on the Grand Casino Arena ice to celebrate two Edina state championships since his playing days, but he’s really looking forward to taking his family to Tuesday’s game. Sara will get to see her husband’s highlights again, and when he takes part in the ceremonial puck drop with Backstrom and Dubnyk, his children will get to hear how much Wild fans loved and respected him.
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“I feel like the ending of my career overshadowed my actual career and who I was,” Harding says. “I hope fans will always remember the fact that I tried to go down fighting for them. I tried to go down fighting for this organization. I always wanted to bring a championship here. I hope that fans know that while the ending was a challenge, I did try to give back to the community and make sure that I impacted the State of Hockey in a positive way.
“I just hope that fans can recall the good times and not just the sick ones.”
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Michael Russo is a senior writer covering the Minnesota Wild and the National Hockey League for The Athletic. He has covered the NHL since 1995 (Florida Panthers) and the Wild since 2005, previously for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and Minneapolis Star Tribune. Michael is a five-time Minnesota Sportswriter of the Year and in 2017 was named the inaugural Red Fisher Award winner as best beat writer in the NHL. Michael can be seen on NHL Network; and heard on KFAN (100.3 FM) and the Worst Seats in the House podcast (talknorth.com). He can be found on Instagram and X at @russohockey and Bluesky at @russohockey.bsky.social. Follow Michael on Twitter @RussoHockey
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