Wilderness Walk: Tough road ahead

The Minnesota Wild are in a precarious spot and the final remaining games of the regular season might actually be exciting.

Typically, we’re treated to gassed teams just wanting to either be in the postseason already or be home. But now, there are things to play for and with nine games left, the Central Division is still wide open. It is a three-way race between the Colorado Avalanche (92 points, 10 games remaining), the Dallas Stars (92 points, nine games remaining), and the Wild (93 points, nine games remaining). It is tight.

And realistically, there is a benefit beyond just winning the division and getting to hang a banner in the rafters of your arena. Those three teams would probably much rather face the Seattle Kraken and their absolutely terrible goaltending in the first round, compared to facing each other. For the Wild, this means avoiding the reigning Cup champs and potentially exiting early once again.

What about the remaining schedule though? Well, the Wild have it worse than the Stars or Avs. Six of their remaining nine games are against current playoff teams, and even the other three include tough teams like the St. Louis Blues and Nashville Predators. The points without Kirill Kaprizov have been earned well so far, but squeaking out wins against the Flyers and Blackhawks doesn’t give us a lot of confidence going forward.

We will be crossing our fingers for the next three weeks.

That’s Wild

Off the trail...