These stats were padded with another chapter when the Vegas Golden Knights defeated the Wild 3-2 in Game 6 Thursday night to close out the series, 4-2.

To add salt to the wound, this stat was posted from the @OptaSTATS account on Twitter/X just before midnight after the loss:

“The Wild are the first team in MLB/NBA/NFL/NHL history to make the playoffs 8+ times in a 10-year span but lost in the opening round every time.”

So yes, Minnesota sports and all that.

“We hear the noise of getting by the first round,” said Wild forward Marcus Foligno. “We understand it. We really felt like we could have done it this year, and that’s the disappointing part, right? But we always want to be a team that has commitment and will and sacrifice and comes together as a family, and that’s what our fans deserve.”

Minnesota Wild fans waved their rally towels at Xcel Energy Center during Game 6. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

Writing “same old Wild” and ending the piece here wouldn’t be much of a story. Besides, it’s already been typed probably hundreds of times on social media by diehard and casual hockey fans.

While some of those franchise stats are the same when it comes to the playoffs, this season and playoff series was not the “same old Wild.” It’s okay for disappointment with the overall results – the win/loss record – while also enjoying the good chapters written along the way. Sports offer incredible moments, memories and amazing plays, along with frustration, anger and heartbreak.

“It’s tough,” Foligno said. “I mean, especially when you felt like you deserved better, right?

“It’s unfortunate we just couldn’t get our looks and get our bounces and move on like they did.”

Capitalizing on chances, miscues make or break a series
The loss absolutely stings for the Wild and their fans. Mistakes and missed opportunities are heightened during the playoffs, and this year was no exception.

In Game 4, the Wild had a chance to take a 3-1 series lead that’s eluded the franchise forever. Instead, they lost in overtime after a defensive miscue by Jake Middleton in the Wild’s zone led to the winning goal for Vegas. In Game 5, it was a goal getting overturned on a coaches’ challenge late in regulation of a tie game that will haunt the Wild – and Gustav Nyquist, who was offsides before Ryan Hartman put the puck in the net – for years to come.

Back home for a must-win Game 6, the Wild never led after giving up a power-play goal just 3 minutes, 30 seconds into the game. Vegas was also more opportunistic than the Wild and made a couple of great plays as they finally got production from a couple of their best players – Jack Eichel and Mark Stone.

Brock Faber handles the puck while Joel Eriksson Ek battles with Tomas Hertl. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

On the go-ahead goal, Wild defenseman Brock Faber pinched in from the blue line and didn’t get back once Vegas got control of the puck. It created a breakaway for Eichel, a superstar who didn’t miss the net, scoring his first goal of the series for a 2-1 Vegas lead late in the second period.

The Wild were down two goals late in the third but responded 31 seconds later to make it 3-2, the second time in the series the Wild had a quick answer in the third period. Minnesota had a flurry of chances in the final two minutes after pulling Filip Gustavsson for the extra attacker. But the clock ran out on the game and the Wild’s 2024-25 campaign.

The feeling was “raw” after the game for Wild coach John Hynes.

“I thought we worked enough and were playing well enough to be able to continue to push the series,” Hynes said. “Unfortunately, it didn’t go our way. But I commend the guys. This was a really fun group to coach, extremely competitive group, coachable.

“It’s obviously disappointing right now because you feel like you deserve a little bit better, at least in the last few games here, and unfortunately, it didn’t go that way.”

This wasn’t the average Wild playoff series
Vegas won the series with four victories in essentially one-goal games. The Golden Knights won three in a row with a pair of overtime victories and then Thursday’s 3-2 result. Game 1 was 4-2, but that included an empty-net goal just before time expired.

Both Gustavsson and Hartman mentioned the two overtime losses in their postgame comments Thursday. Gustavsson thought a moment before answering that the Wild should have one of those overtime games was a deciding factor. It’s small details in tight games, he added.

“I think years past we had some pretty good teams, but this one, those things we went through, the way we stuck with things,” Hartman said. “This one feels like we could have gone deep.

“We battled. Two overtime losses the last two games, and a close one tonight. Felt like it could have easily gone seven, but we felt like we had what it took to go forward.”

“Credit to them. They found a way to get it done,” said Wild coach John Hynes, following the Game 6 loss. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

The Wild were close. They were right there. For many stretches in the series they outplayed Vegas. Gustavsson looked like the better goaltender than Adin Hill at the other end. That’s what was so different about this playoff series for the Wild, and perhaps what will make the loss sting that much more.

Minnesota wasn’t overmatched. The Wild didn’t run into a brick wall of a hot goaltender. They didn’t struggle to score goals and generate offense. Their top players didn’t figuratively disappear. All problems that have plagued this franchise for years in the playoffs.

The only game that looked similar to years past was Game 6, because of the close-but-no-cigar chances the Wild had to score more than two goals. The Wild outshot Vegas 31-23 in the game, but they left so much on the table when it came to finishing off plays. It wasn’t for lack of trying or offensive zone time.

Wild fans have seen the movie before, where a puck bounces one way, a player’s stick is just in the wrong spot, a gaping net is staring at the Wild while the goalie is out of position, but they can’t cash in, for whatever reason. That’s hockey, and no matter how many chances the Wild generated with their season on the line, the puck wasn’t finding the back of the net when they needed it the most.

“You feel a little bit gut-punched,” Foligno said. “It does feel a little bit like that. You’re feeling ‘what do we have to do in order to get by, what’s next’ type thing, that’s the game of hockey. That’s why it’s frustrating to play it, but it can give you the best thing in the world and what we all dream of, and that’s winning the Stanley Cup and that’s our goal and always will be.

“But it feels like we had something a lot better, a lot different this year.”

Hartman, goal scoring and one last moment for Flower
In Game 6, the Wild got two goals from Hartman, who played excellent – and disciplined – hockey throughout the series. He had four assists coming into Game 6 before finally getting a goal that counted with four seconds left in the first period to tie the game 1-1. Hartman also buried the puck from the side of the cage with 3:27 remaining in regulation. He had another great chance off a feed from Kirill Kaprizov earlier in the third period but couldn’t finish the play with a goal; Hartman banged his stick on the end glass in frustration.

Ryan Hartman scored two goals, both in Game 6, and four assists in the six-game playoff series. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

Hartman bounced back well this season from an eight-game suspension for roughing in a game in Ottawa in early February. It left a Wild team riddled with injuries all season even more shorthanded at the time. But he was a catalyst for the Wild in this series. Hynes said Thursday that Hartman “grew a little bit” coming back from the suspension.

“I think just his mental focus really when he came back from that coming down the stretch to end the regular season and into the playoffs,” Hynes said. “Just more focused, channeled his energy the right way, played the game the right way, and he had a great playoffs for us. It was really good to see.”

Hynes added that Hartman has a competitive gene which produces an ability and mindset to play his best during a hard playoff series. But Hartman, who’s played in the last five playoff series losses with the Wild, wasn’t interested in focusing on the personal positives of his game.

“I’d rather have been out of the lineup and we’d move on,” Hartman said. “It really doesn’t (expletive) matter.”

Hartman wasn’t the only bright spot in this series. The Wild’s top line of Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy combined for 10 goals and nine assists, with Kaprizov and Boldy each scoring five goals. Though they were kept off the scoresheet in the final game, the Wild received the kind of play they needed from this trio. As a reminder, two of those players missed a combined 77 games this season due to injury. Eriksson Ek and Kaprizov each returned to the lineup April 9, with Eriksson Ek scoring four goals while Kaprizov notched two.  

Boldy, who played in all 88 games this season, showed the type of skill and hustle expected of a top-line winger. Eriksson Ek’s presence is felt all over the ice, including with the level of physicality and in the faceoff circle, although he wasn’t able to get a goal in these past six games. Kaprizov is one of the best players in the league and was playing like an MVP candidate before his injury around Christmas.

One of the best plays of the series was Kaprizov’s saucer pass to Boldy up the ice for a goal in Game 2 Boldy called it the best pass he’d ever seen. Foligno quipped during that press conference that it was a “rude” thing for Boldy to say, since he assisted on Boldy’s first NHL goal.

Foligno was another player who threw his weight around in the series, both with hits and offensively. He scored three goals in the series and assisted on Hartman’s first goal of the night Thursday. Foligno came into Thursday leading the league with 38 hits in the playoffs; he finished with 42 hits in six games.

The end of the Wild’s season also marks the end of goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury’s NHL career. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

Gustavsson had his own highlight reel of important saves when his team needed it. He played all but the third period and overtime of Game 5, exiting because he was sick. That gave Marc-Andre Fleury one more period-plus of NHL hockey before his expected retirement at 40 years old.

As the traditional post-series handshakes ended, the fans who remained at Xcel Energy Center started a “Fleury! Fleury! Fleury!” chant in appreciation. He gave a brief acknowledgement to the crowd before being the first Wild player to skate off the ice and down the tunnel; the rest of the Wild players and the Vegas players stayed on the ice and offered stick taps to acknowledge the future hall of famer. It was a brief moment shortened by the deflating team loss.

Still, it was an emotional scene for Foligno, though it’s safe to say he wasn’t the only one.  

“You feel for him,” Foligno said. “I think we all pushed really hard for him and trying to extend this as long as we can. The big goal was to go out a winner. That would have been the ultimate sacrifice and ultimate dream going out.

“We’re all very fortunate in this room to have played with him.”

Gallery: Wild vs. Golden Knights

The post Early Exit appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

The only team that didn’t make a trade that moved the needle was the third-place Minnesota Wild. Bottom six winger Justin Brazeau was acquired from Boston late Thursday after veteran winger Gustav Nyquist was obtained from Nashville last weekend.

Will Wild general manager Bill Guerin be criticized for not doing more? Probably. Should he be? Absolutely not.

If Guerin had really wanted to deal for a player such as Nelson, Buffalo’s Dylan Cozens, who was moved to Ottawa, or Vancouver’s Brock Boeser, who wasn’t moved, he could have put Joel Eriksson Ek on long-term injured reserve with Kirill Kaprizov and kept both out until the playoffs opened in order to circumvent the salary cap.

But Guerin wisely elected to keep his top prospects and focus on the opening of free agency on July 1. That’s when the NHL’s salary cap will rise from $88 million to $95.5 million and when the dead cap hits of $14.7 million for the buyouts of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter will shrink to $1.7 million.

The Wild and Avalanche both have 76 points, but the Wild are in third place because they have a game in hand. The Avalanche almost certainly will pass the Wild in the coming days, but Minnesota still figures to make the playoffs. A fantastic start to the season that briefly put the Wild atop the NHL standings has helped to give them an eight-point lead on Calgary, the second wild card in the Western Conference, and a nine-point lead on Vancouver, the first team out of the postseason.

But there is no way Guerin could have looked at his roster on Friday — especially once the Jets, Avalanche and Stars started making moves — and thought he had a team that could emerge from the Western Conference. The Wild missed the playoffs last season, were expected to miss again this season and ended up being a pleasant surprise that right now is without two of their top forwards, Kaprizov and Eriksson Ek, and a top-four defenseman in Jonas Brodin.

The what-if? game
While Guerin says he expects Kaprizov, Eriksson Ek and Brodin to return before the regular season is finished, no one knows how effective they will be if they do play again. Let’s say the Wild had acquired Boeser for a 2026 first-round pick — their 2025 first-rounder was dealt to Columbus for promising young defenseman David Jiricek — along with winger Liam Ohgren and a third-round selection.

Would Boeser have joined a team that had a full-strength Kaprizov? The Wild forward has played in three games of 27 games since Dec. 23 after initially being considered day-to-day. Kaprizov underwent surgery for his lower-body injury in late January and still hasn’t started skating. He might return, but will he be his normal explosive self? Clearly, Guerin and the doctors have no idea.

Eriksson Ek, the Wild’s best center, has missed the past five games because of what The Athletic reported is a broken bone in his leg. Wild coach John Hynes told The Athletic it might be a “usage injury,” meaning there is no predicting if Eriksson Ek will be fully healthy again this season. Brodin has dealt with injuries all season and is now out with a lower-body injury after blocking a shot against Colorado late last month.

Add it up and the only thing a significant trade by Guerin would have done is add a player, likely on an expiring contract, to a mix of guys who might be back at some point but also could and should be shut down at the first sign of trouble. The Wild are better off pursuing Boeser when he becomes a free agent on July 1 and not giving up anything for him.

Given Guerin’s penchant for making deals, the guess here is that it pained him to mostly sit out this deadline. But he did the right thing. The Wild’s long-term future looks bright because the cupboard is filled with prospects. Not moving some of them in the name of trying to make a run against what now appears to be superior competition was the type of restraint for which Guerin should be applauded.

The post Less Is More appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.

Turns out the Wild general manager wasn’t even close to being done.

Newly-acquired Wild forward Gustav Nyquist wins a puck battle with now teammate Jared Spurgeon as a member of the Detroit Red Wings in an April 4. 2015 game at Xcel Energy Center. (MHM Photo / Jonny Watkins)

Guerin made three more trades before the 2 p.m. deadline. Winger Jordan Greenway was dealt to Buffalo for a second-round pick in this year’s draft and a fifth-round selection in 2024, and Oskar Sundqvist, who can play center and wing, was acquired from Detroit for a fourth-round selection in 2023.

Those two moves weren’t surprising. The third one, which was reported just after the deadline had passed, was a stunner. The Wild acquired veteran defenseman John Klingberg from the Anaheim Ducks for Andrej Sustr, a 2025 fourth-round pick, and the rights to 2019 sixth-round selection Nikita Nesterenko (Boston College). The Ducks also retained 50 percent of Klingberg’s $7 million cap hit.

Guerin acknowledged even he was surprised by the amount of activity. “I did not think we would get this busy,” he said. “I told my wife that this morning and she called B.S. I guess she knows me better than anybody. I think we got a lot accomplished today. I think we’re better today than we were yesterday and that’s the idea.”

The Klingberg acquisition means coach Dean Evason is going to have some decisions to make on the blue line, especially when Jonas Brodin returns from injury. Klingberg’s skill set could mean that Calen Addison, who has ended up in Evason’s doghouse this season because of his play in his own zone, could be making a return to the press box. Veteran Alex Goligoski also could be the odd man out.

The 30-year-old Klingberg spent his first eight seasons as a standout defenseman in Dallas before signing a one-year contract with the Ducks in July. He had eight goals and 24 points in 50 games with the Ducks and was minus-28 on one of the NHL’s worst teams. Klingberg is considered a defensive liability — and his performance this season was a major disappointment — but the Wild are willing to take a risk and hope he returns to the form that led to a 47-point season in 74 games with the Stars in 2021-22.

Winger Kirill Kaprizov has been a one-man show on offense for the Wild of late — he scored both goals in a 2-1 win on Thursday in Vancouver — and Klingberg’s ability to move the puck from the back end should help the Wild’s transition game. Klingberg also is likely to quarterback the first power-play unit, replacing Addison in that spot.

The Wild’s average of 2.77 goals per game puts them 26th among 32 NHL teams. However, Minnesota is fifth in the NHL in goals against, giving up only 2.66. In winning seven of their past eight, and getting at least a point in each, the Wild have averaged only 2.25 goals per game. Take out the shootout goals the Wild was credited with to secure victories in two of those games and the Wild have 16 goals in that time. Kaprizov has eight of them.

Somebody else, anybody, needs to create offense.

“The blue line has been great,” Guerin said. “Not that our guys don’t move the puck well now, but it’s just that natural offensive instinct, that natural offensive ability (that Klingberg will bring). We like to defend first, but when there’s a play to be made he’s the type of guy that really can make a high-level offensive play.”

Jordan Greenway, seen here in a March 26, 2022 game vs. the Columbus Blue Jackets, is taking his grinding, defensive game to Buffalo after the trade deadline dust settled. (MHM Photo / Rick Olson)

Guerin’s activity at the deadline shouldn’t be confused with a desperation that he had to rebuild the roster. Despite having plenty of salary-cap room as the deadline approached, the Wild will be back in cap hell starting in the offseason and will remain there through 2024-25 because of the buyouts of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter. Guerin knew what he was getting into the day he decided to jettison the pair, so there is no attempt at a pity party coming from the GM.

What Guerin tried to do this week was give his defensive-first team a bit of a boost with some offensive pieces that he will have the ability to move on from when the season ends. Johansson, who spent the shortened 2020-21 season with the Wild before moving to Seattle, is playing on a one-year contract, while Sundqvist and Nyquist (who is currently injured) are in the final seasons of their multi-year deals. All are rentals, but also come at reasonable prices.

Greenway’s departure is addition by subtraction. The fact the Wild received a high pick (which originally belonged to Vegas) in what is considered a deep draft is a big win for Guerin.

The Wild once had high hopes for Greenway but the 2015 second-round selection never consistently used his 6-foot-6, 231-pound frame to his advantage. He was sidelined in training camp and for the early part of the season after having shoulder surgery and things went downhill from there. Greenway was scratched from a January game after showing up late and eventually received a talking to from Guerin about his play.

Greenway, 26, had only two goals and seven points in 45 games this season. His assist in Tuesday’s win over the Islanders broke a 21-game pointless streak and his last goal came on New Year’s Eve in St. Louis. 

The 28-year-old Sundqvist, whose size (6-3, 220 pounds) will help replace Greenway’s, had seven goals and 21 points in 52 games this season with the Red Wings. He has played in 340 career NHL games and has 116 points in eight seasons with the Penguins, Blues and Red Wings and also has 10 points, including four goals, in 36 playoff games.

The Wild deserved some sort of boost, considering their 76 points put them three behind first place Dallas in the Central Division and the Western Conference as the deadline arrived. Minnesota was three points ahead of third-place Colorado, the defending Stanley Cup champion and the team the Wild would face if the postseason began today. 

But Guerin wanted to be careful not to go overboard with his support because the Wild were only four points up on Winnipeg, which holds the second and final wild card spot in the conference.

Joel Eriksson-Ek and Jonas Brodin look on as fellow Swede and new Wild teammate Oskar Sundqvist fires a shot for the St. louis Blues in a Feb. 24, 2019 game at Xcel Energy Center. (MHM Photo / Jeff Wegge)

Guerin made it clear as the deadline neared that he wasn’t going to trade his first-round pick in this year’s draft, or any of his top prospects. He knows that once the Wild emerge from their salary-cap issues, which could happen sooner than expected if the cap increases in the next two seasons, a prospect pool that was voted the best in the NHL by The Athletic could put the organization in a spot to make a run at its first Stanley Cup.

Mortgaging that future for a team that Evason has molded into a shut down unit that would make Jacques Lemaire proud, would not have been wise. Guerin, after all, had high hopes last season after acquiring goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and others at the trade deadline. That Wild team had a franchise-record 113 points — and a far more dynamic offense — and was bounced in the opening round for the sixth time in its past six tries.

The Wild is hoping to end that stretch, and win their first playoff series since 2015, this spring. Guerin’s moves this past week appeared to increase the chances of that happening. “We’re committed,” Guerin said when asked what he hoped these moves showed his team. “Our owner, Craig Leipold, is committed and he’s providing us with the financial backing that it takes to get better. We’re serious. We’re serious about winning.”

Just not at the expense of harming a bright future.

The post Committed to the Cause appeared first on Minnesota Hockey Magazine.