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By Tom Schreier -
Remember when the Minnesota Wild beat the Edmonton Oilers in November?
The box score reads like a fever dream. Freddy Gaudreau scored two goals, and Matt Boldy, Marcus Foligno, and Marcus Johansson scored the other three in a 5-3 win. Marc-Andre Fleury made 29 saves. Drake Caggiula hit Kirill Kaprizov in the knee. However, the injury looked worse than it was, and he returned to the game.
“You don’t want to see any of your teammates leave,” Gaudreau said. “But a little something extra special for him. He’s the heart and soul of our team. He’s the engine that runs the team.”
Think about all of that in the context of this season. The Wild were 13-3-3 after beating Edmonton, who represented the West in the Stanley Cup last year. They’d enter Thanksgiving battling the Winnipeg Jets for Central Division supremacy.
Gaudreau is on one of the NHL’s most unique long-term deals, and he had two goals against the Oilers a year after scoring five all season. Boldy is an excellent complement to Kaprizov, but he can’t carry the first line alone. Still, he chipped in after Edmonton’s player injured Kaprizov. Foligno, 33, and Johansson, 34, are past their prime but contributed.
The aging Fleury is a Jaguar-turned-jalopy. Still, he thwarted Connor McDavid, and Leon Draisaitl scored a flukey goal to start the game.
It’s easy to think back to that time as the playoffs near. It was before Kaprizov’s surgery and Joel Eriksson Ek’s lower-body injury. Before the Wild lost three games to the Utah Yotes and two to the Ottawa Senators. An inconsistent team that can beat Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals but is also searching through the couch cushions for loser’s points was once a Central Division juggernaut.
It’s easy to think back to that time and assume Minnesota will be fine once the playoffs start. Kaprizov and Eriksson Ek will return. Zeev Buium will come riding in, perhaps ready to give them a boost in the postseason. A fully healthy Wild team will resemble the one that stifled Ovi and the Caps, not the one that the Sens slapped around.
However, such thinking requires Forest Green blinders. You’d have to ignore the 1-2 record against the Dallas Stars and Los Angeles Kings, 0-3 against the Vegas Golden Knights, 0-2 against Winnipeg, and the surging St. Louis Blues.
MoneyPuck sets the odds at 18% that the Wild advance past the first round for the first time since 2014-15.
It’s the kind of wishful thinking that draws you to West 7th for a Thursday game against Edmonton on a cold day in December, only to see the Oilers win 7-1. Still, 18% is nearly a one-in-five chance. Buium might round out the defense, assuming the Wild trust him enough to call him up immediately. Kaprizov is a dynamic player.
The Wild are waiting on the perfect storm. Kaprizov and Eriksson Ek’s return. Yurov and Buium becoming black aces. Filip Gustavsson standing on his head after they’ve ridden him all season.
Minnesota is floating in the Western Conference’s stormy waters, hoping the tide lifts them. They’re banking that their win over Edmonton in November indicates how they can play in the postseason. However, if the Wild get lost at sea, it could become a distant memory. Nobody will remember that game if they lose in the first round again.
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