Wild overcame injuries to make the playoffs, only to endure another first-round exit

Another season, another first-round exit from the playoffs by the Wild.

Like clockwork and on cue.

But as much as getting eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs by Vegas on Thursday had the telltale signs of a typical Wild demise, this one was different — in style but more so substance.

The Wild never got to find out if their potential really was the team that led the NHL in December. Injuries took that from them. That they still made the playoffs and challenged a contender in the Golden Knights is a compliment rather than a critique.

“They are a tough team, tough team to play against,” Vegas veteran Brayden McNabb said. “They are a good team.”

So, what will define this Wild season isn’t more of the same: It’s the unanswered question of what might have been.

“It’s tough,” alternate captain Marcus Foligno said, “especially when you felt like you deserved better, right? I think in those past ones we didn’t, and this one we did.”

That distinction was earned by their start.

Schooled in coach John Hynes’ system from training camp in his first full-term behind the bench, the Wild learned the predictable patterns that would guide them up ice and their decision-making became instinctual.

Their results proved it.

They never trailed through their first six games, a run of almost 400 minutes that’s the second-longest season-opening streak in NHL history. The Wild were a force on the road and with only five regulation losses a third of the way through their schedule, the Wild were atop the league on Dec. 11.

“Really got to an identity that gave ourselves a chance to win,” Hynes said.

Filip Gustavsson rebounded from a down season, the goaltender setting the tone for the stinginess and automatic positioning that would stabilize the defense, and Kirill Kaprizov’s steady scoring for the upstart Wild made him the first-half MVP.

But eventually the Wild could no longer be the Wild, as much as they tried.

Injuries popped up early and often, and they weren’t run-of-the-mill.

Jonas Brodin played sparingly over a month. Mats Zuccarello sat out a month. Gustavsson was hurt, too. Same with Joel Eriksson Ek, Jake Middleton and captain Jared Spurgeon. Then Brodin again.

The Wild admirably masked these absences until it was Kaprizov who was gone, and how does a team replace their best player midseason? They don’t.

Kaprizov ended up missing half the season due to a lower-body injury that ultimately required surgery.

Not only was his MVP candidacy tanked, but the Wild struggled to score without their superstar winger and the once-opportunistic offense became a shell of itself while the Wild clung to their detailed defending.

Eriksson Ek getting sidelined again after the 4 Nations Face-Off made matters worse.

Good tries but costly, close losses chipped away at the Wild’s lead in the standings until they were in a three-way race for two of the Western Conference wild cards when Kaprizov and Eriksson Ek finally returned with four games to go.

Even so, the Wild didn’t officially get back to the playoffs after a one-year hiatus until they made it to overtime in their regular-season finale on Eriksson Ek’s goal with 22 seconds left in the third period. They finished 45-30-7 and with 97 points.

“The perseverance of missing guys for a while, getting in with 30 seconds left in the last game of the year,” center Ryan Hartman said, “we battled.”

That determination carried over into the playoffs where the Wild showed flashes of who they once were.

After dropping a tight Game 1 to the Golden Knights 4-2, the Wild were reincarnated with a 5-2 victory in Game 2 when they executed the less-is-more, quality-over-quantity scheme that frustrated so many of their early-season opponents.

This dovetailed into their 5-2 victory in Game 3, and then the series took a turn.

The Wild were 31-0 when leading after two periods until Game 4 when Vegas rallied late, capitalizing on a third-period power play before surviving one for the Wild in overtime en route to a 4-3 comeback off a failed clear by Middleton after the Wild shortened their bench.

Then in Game 5, the Wild got back to their roots despite Gustavsson leaving ahead of the third period due to illness and Marc-Andre Fleury coming in cold for the last saves of his Hall of Fame career.

But the go-ahead goal by Hartman with 1 minute, 15 seconds remaining in the third period was wiped out by winger Gustav Nyquist being offside, and Vegas pounced on botched coverage for a 3-2 overtime celebration.

“The two games we lost in overtime you could say some of it was bounces,” Hynes said. “One we had one faceoff. We lost it. We lost it in overtime. We had an opportunity to win it the other night. We didn’t it. We had a breakdown.

“Sometimes when you don’t win a series or you get outplayed in the series there’s a particular part of the game that you couldn’t fix or figure out or get to, and that wasn’t the case for our team.”

In Game 6 at Xcel Energy Center, the Wild came back from falling behind first — which was an ominous start since the team that scored first won each time.

They still were mindful of defense and pressured on offense. But the slip-ups stung: Vegas took advantage of a 4-minute power play, Jack Eichel got loose for a breakaway after the Wild held the Golden Knights juggernaut mostly in check, and a Mark Stone deflection late in the third was the difference — Vegas’ patience and pedigree paying off as they withstood the Wild’s last-ditch effort 3-2.

Hartman had both goals, his production trailing only Kaprizov and Matt Boldy’s in the series, which emphasized the Wild’s competitiveness when they are whole.

Imagine if they had been that way longer.

“You get to playoffs, and you get your best two stars back and you hit the reset button, and you play a style of play that could have been there all year,” Foligno said. “But you had to play a little different because guys were out.

“Then you play against a first-place team, and you go neck and neck with them. Obviously, we didn’t go to Game 7, but it was closer than it showed. Yeah, felt different.”

As it should.

But that doesn’t change the facts.

The Wild haven’t been past the first round in 10 years. Including the best-of-five qualifying round they played in the COVID bubble in 2020, they have lost nine consecutive postseason series.

Only once in Kaprizov’s five seasons have they even made it to a Game 7; this was the third straight playoffs they were bounced in six games despite leading 2-1 in the series after suffering the same fate vs. Central Division rivals St. Louis (2022) and Dallas (2023).

“I feel we played pretty good,” said Kaprizov, who is eligible to sign a contract extension on July 1, “better, I think, than like two years ago.”

How the Wild proceed will matter more than in the past because finally they have completed the most expensive stint of the Zach Parise and Ryan Suter buyouts.

A nearly $15 million charge against their salary cap will drop to a nominal $1.67 million this offseason, giving the Wild their first flexible summer in years.

“We’re all looking forward to that, just having a clean slate so to speak and a team that cannot be handcuffed,” Foligno said. “We’re excited for that opportunity and at the end of the day, it’s up to us in here to do something with it. But are we excited? For sure.”

This chance for change combined with the Wild establishing what works for them tactically means they don’t have to be the same old Wild.

They can be different, not just in appearance but action, too.

“We’re a team that’s right there and can build off this,” Foligno said. “Just learn from it and understand that this is the type of Minnesota Wild hockey we have to play consistently and heck, it was an exciting series. It was back and forth. It was physical. It’s everything that you wanted from our team.

“Yeah, it’s just something that you lose, but you do feel like you took a step.”