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Somehow, the biggest lightning rod in the Minnesota Wild's abbreviated playoff run was the player with the team's third-fewest minutes. But that's what fans will focus on when a team takes Marco Rossi, their second-leading scorer in the regular season, and plays him for 11 minutes and 8 seconds per night. For context, that's less than Marat Khusnutdinov, a fourth-line center with seven points in 57 games, got during the regular season. Having seen the Wild's postseason play out, it's clear what happened. John Hynes (and possibly Bill Guerin, judging from some of his radio comments) decided that Rossi couldn't make an impact in a series against the Vegas Golden Knights. He started on the third line with Marcus Foligno and a clearly washed Gustav Nyquist, a role Rossi hadn't been in all season. After struggling in his playoff debut, the Wild demoted him to the fourth line with Yakov Trenin and Justin Brazeau. And that's where he stayed. Scoring goals in back-to-back games didn't get him out of the doghouse. Engaging physically in Game 5, where he registered three hits and three blocked shots, didn't do the trick, either. No style of play, no level of success was getting him off the fourth line. There was nothing he could do. In doing so, the Wild doomed Rossi to their self-fulfilling prophecy. By treating him as if he couldn't make an impact, they put him in a position where he was least capable of making one. Despite the three points in six games -- a 0.50 PPG average that is, mind you, tied for 19th in franchise history, between Kevin Fiala (0.53 PPG) and Mikko Koivu (0.47) -- Minnesota got a result they can point to and back up their suspicions. His detractors (including those in the Wild organization) can point to three flashpoints: Rossi being on the ice for the Game 5 overtime goal. His double minor in Game 6. And his having the worst expected goals percentage at 5-on-5 this series, as noted by The Athletic. Make of the errors what you'd like, I guess. Rossi was part of that Game 5 breakdown -- although there's a pretty good case that Zach Bogosian was more responsible. Even though Brayden McNabb lifted Rossi's stick into his own face in Game 6, Rossi still has to control his stick. But as for his expected goals percentage... what did the Wild expect? Out of 18 forwards with 150-plus minutes at 5-on-5 for the Wild during the regular season, Trenin was 10th in goals for percentage (44.4) and 11th in expected goals for percentage (47.5). Brazeau ranked dead last in both categories. Both players were in the bottom half of generating actual and expected goals per hour. That trio didn't generate offense outside of two nice passes off a Trenin forecheck. The Rossi-Trenin duo combined to get just a 28.5% share of the expected goals in their limited time on the ice. Minnesota generated expected goals at a rate of 0.99 per hour with that tandem, which is abysmal. When apart from Trenin, his expected goals share boosted up to 49.3%, and the Wild generated 2.44 expected goals per hour. If you're looking for a reason why Rossi would have disappointing numbers with Trenin and Brazeau, it's not hard to figure out. There's a reason Hynes doesn't consider playing Matt Boldy or Kirill Kaprizov on the fourth line for an entire playoff series. Maybe you're thinking something like, Look, a player isn't entitled to a spot in the lineup because they scored 60 points in the regular season. This is professional sports. It's not about fairness or being a hard-working kid with a good attitude who does everything the team asks of him. It's about results. And, hey, maybe that's right. So let's take a look at Rossi's results. In 66:47 of all-situations time, Rossi scored three points. Mind you, only 3:30 of that was on the power play, less time than the likes of Nyquist and Marcus Johansson. Despite being a power play afterthought, he put up 2.70 points per hour during his ice time. For fun, here's a list of Wild players who Rossi's career points per hour rate beats out: Zach Parise, 2.66 points per hour Kirill Kaprizov, 2.40 points per hour Marian Gaborik, 2.36 points per hour Ryan Hartman, 2.30 points per hour Jason Pominville, 2.28 points per hour Wes Walz, 2.26 points per hour Brian Rolston, 2.03 points per hour Kevin Fiala, 1.89 points per hour Pavol Demitra, 1.86 points per hour Matt Boldy, 1.86 points per hour Eric Staal, 1.86 points per hour Nino Niederreiter, 1.82 points per hour Small sample size, but damn, that sounds like someone Minnesota should've put on the ice if they wanted not to lose three games by a goal each. Only Hynes didn't do that. It's one thing for a coach to bury his team's second-leading scorer on the fourth line and win the series. They can claim they pushed the right buttons, and scoreboard. Who's gonna argue? But when they lose a series of one-goal games? There are gonna be questions to answer, especially for a coach whose playoff results aren't exactly above reproach. It was a predictable outcome for the Wild, partly because they ensured it, both for Rossi and the series as a whole. Minnesota played Rossi on the fourth line, and now they can claim he played like a fourth liner. That makes sense. The logical conclusion for Hynes turning his third-most-potent scoring threat into a fourth-liner was the one we saw. The Wild offense drying up the second Kaprizov and Boldy started running out of gas. Don't worry -- with the increasingly inevitable Rossi trade coming up, it appears that no lessons will be learned from any of this.

One goal short. That's all the Minnesota Wild needed to get this series on lockdown. Finding one more goal -- anywhere -- was the difference between going back to Vegas with the Golden Knights demoralized or with home ice advantage in a de facto best-of-three. You can't get picky about where the goals come from in the playoffs. Or at least, that's got to be the lesson John Hynes learned in Game 4. Because when his team needed a goal the most, he spent all but 7 minutes and 17 seconds with 24 goals sitting on the bench. It's no secret that the Wild have long doubted Marco Rossi's ability to contribute to a playoff effort. At the end of the 2022-23 season, Minnesota refused to play their top center prospect, who had a strong season in the AHL, in a series against the Dallas Stars. This despite losing Joel Eriksson Ek to a broken leg. Those reservations have persisted into this year. Hynes has shown no faith in his 60-point center's season carrying over to the first round. After an admittedly poor showing on the third line during his 12-minute playoff debut, Hynes dropped Rossi to the fourth line and has given him strictly fourth-line minutes. Unlike Ryan Hartman, who was able to play his way off the fourth line in Game 1, that path doesn't seem available to Rossi. He scored on his third shift in Game 3, and Rossi finished with 10:52 of time on ice. Game 4 was even worse. Once again, he scored on his third shift of the game, and his line with Yakov Trenin and Justin Brazeau was easily Minnesota's best forward group. Still, Rossi had 7:17 through regulation, including 1:19 in the second period and 2:37 in the third. How many guys score a goal in back-to-back games while remaining effectively benched? We know how many other 60-point forwards are getting used as little as Rossi is this postseason: zero. Among the other 42 forwards who scored 60 points this season, only 39-year-old Alex Ovechkin (15:28 per night) is averaging under 16 minutes. Lower the bar to 50-point forwards, and no one comes close to Rossi's microscopic ice time. It's clear that Game 1 fed into Hynes' doubts that Rossi could provide an impact in the series, one where the 5-foot-9 center was going against the fifth-heaviest team in the NHL. But now? He's proven that he can hang, and he doesn't even need top-tier linemates or a lot of minutes to do it. His first goal came with bruising, 6-foot-4 Brayden McNabb on the ice, with 6-foot-2, 216-pound Keegan Kolesar closing in on him. In Game 4, 6-foot-6 Nicolas Hague, 6-foot-2 Zach Whitecloud, 6-foot-4 Nicolas Roy, 6-foot-1 Tanner Pearson, and Kolesar couldn't stop Rossi from parking 14 feet from the net, untouched. Not only is Rossi finding space against a much bigger team (only Joel Eriksson Ek has more shots on goal per hour this series), but he's doing something no other Wild draftee has done since Marian Gaborik. Produce in his first playoff series. Rossi has two goals and an assist through his first four career postseason games. No other Wild-drafted player has scored three points in their first four playoff games in Minnesota. He's already matched what Kirill Kaprizov did in his first playoff series against the Golden Knights. Rossi surpassed Boldy's output in his first series by Game 3. Even Gaborik, who ended his first series with four goals and six points, didn't take off until Game 6. Here's where Rossi ranked coming into Sunday's action among 176 forwards with 30-plus all-situations playoff minutes. And remember, this is all with a fourth-line assignment and while being relegated to the second power play: 7th in Goals Per Hour (2.76) 20th in Points Per Hour (4.14) 16th in Shots Per Hour (11.3) Of course, we're talking about a small sample size, but still... there's so much more to indicate that Rossi's a player who can step up in the playoffs, rather than shrink from the moment. But as the Wild grew desperate for an insurance goal, then later a go-ahead goal, Hynes made little effort to find ways to get his second-leading goal-scorer on the ice. Hynes made no commitment after Game 4 to increase Rossi's role, either. "We'll take it game by game," he said when pressed about Rossi's ice time. It's one thing (but still ill-advised, arguably) to be unwilling to commit to Rossi long-term. The Athletic's Michael Russo has reported that the team has only offered Rossi five years and $25 million -- a below-market deal, even when we don't account for the salary cap's pending exponential rise. Oddly, Minnesota is seemingly preparing to move on from a center with a 60-point season before hitting his 24th birthday, but hey, maybe the Wild have a vision for the future. It's much more bizarre to be unwilling to commit to Rossi now. This is the playoffs, and the Wild aren't going to trade for the center of their dreams before their playoff run ends. They don't have top center prospect Danila Yurov ready to step in for Rossi until next year. Minnesota's not nearly so deep that they can afford to play their 24-goal center for just seven minutes in regulation in a must-win game. Hynes has two options: He can maximize the playing time of his best players or continue to let perfection be the enemy of good with one of his two best centers. The coach chose the latter, which may have already bitten him, putting Minnesota's chances of winning their first playoff series in a decade in peril.

In a game like hockey, where momentum, pressure, and emotions dictate the outcomes of games, a team's captain can often be the spark that pushes the team to new heights. Some teams have captains like Alex Ovechkin or Sidney Crosby, whose offense can carry a team. However, the players you hear about the least often make the most impact. That’s the case for Minnesota Wild captain Jared Spurgeon. Spurgeon’s teammates give him accolades, but people outside the organization often overlook his impact. Spurgeon’s consistent defense and flashes of playmaking have never been more critical than now. I don’t need to reiterate that the Wild have struggled to score. So, with the postseason right around the corner, it is refreshing to see that the Wild’s 35-year-old captain has been scoring at an elevated rate. Spurgeon has mostly stayed healthy this season, scoring seven goals and 32 points in 65 games. It’s encouraging to see the captain return to form this year after playing only 16 games in the 2023-24 season before undergoing season-ending back and hip surgery. It also became clear what the Wild look like without Spurgeon. He’s always been crucial to the Wild’s backchecking. Stable defense Since the beginning of 2023, Spurgeon has missed 82 games. In that time, the Wild have allowed 262 goals. However, in the last 82 games with Spurgeon, Minnesota has allowed 236 goals. Because the Wild have lost 380 of their 493 one-goal games since their founding, the 26-goal difference with Spurgeon on the ice could be the difference between making the playoffs or not. The puck goes in the net less with him around. While Spurgeon may only be +7 this season, he has a respectable career plus/minus. He has been +30 three times and +124 three times. That ties Spurgeon for the 196th-best career plus/minus of all time, tied with 35-year-old defenseman Alex Pietrangelo. Experts argue over whether plus/minus is a reliable stat, with the consensus being that the quality of one's team heavily affects the player’s number. However, in Spurgeon’s case this year, he played most of the season without Kirill Kaprizov to pad his stats. Spurgeon did this on a team with a -12 goal differential, the seventh-worst goal differential in franchise history. His blocked shots also highlight his defensive prowess. Spurgeon’s 115 blocked shots are the second-most on the Wild. I’d say his willingness to put his body on the line after undergoing major surgeries might be what the rest of the team sees in him. Late in the season, he injured his throat by blocking a shot. Consistent offense Spurgeon's defensive capabilities have been the foundation of his success, but he’s consistently produced offense from the blue line. Spurgeon may not be Quinn Hughes or Cale Makar, but he’s tied for the sixth-most points on the Wild this season. That might not have been the case if Minnesota’s offensive core had stayed healthy this season. Still, Spurgeon stepped up when the Wild needed him most, the trait of a team captain. Even though Wild fans see Spurgeon as a superstar, you likely won't hear about Spurgeon’s game on ESPN or the NHL Network. Still, the Wild aren’t the Wild without him. His consistency offensively and defensively stabilizes them on both sides of the ice. Though Spurgeon has had every excuse for his offensive production to slip, he didn’t take that as an option. Since 2015, Spurgeon has achieved two 40-point seasons and has only failed to score fewer than 29 points twice: once in 2020 due to a shortened season and once in 2023 because of his surgeries. During the COVID-shortened season, Spurgeon played 54 games and scored 25 points, maintaining his usual production of roughly half a point per game. In terms of points per 60 minutes this season, Spurgeon has maintained an average of 1.45, the third-best of his career. The last time he scored at a better rate was in the 2021-22 and 2017-18 seasons, when he scored 1.75 and 1.48, respectively. Throughout these three seasons, one constant has remained: Spurgeon stayed above 1.0 assists per 60 minutes, proving he is still a fantastic playmaker today. Staying consistent offensively is difficult enough in the NHL. Still, for obvious reasons, it is even more difficult for a defenseman to make a difference on both ends of the ice. Add aging into the mix, and you start to realize why you see players retire in their mid-30s. While I hope not to see Spurgeon retire anytime soon, the good thing is that he still has a lot left in his game. He may not spend his entire career in Minnesota because the Wild have more reasons to let him go than to stay. But in a season of ups and downs, Spurgeon has been a constant for the Wild, who still gives us glimpses of the player he was in his prime.