Wilderness Walk: Won the big one

We can all breathe a little bit easier this morning. On Wednesday night, the Minnesota Wild were facing the Colorado Avalanche in a must-win-if-they-want-to-win-the-division game. Well, thanks to a whole lot of depth players doing their job supplying the offense, the Wild came away with a 4-2 win over the divisional rivals.

It started with a super goal from Marcus Johansson after he got a near-perfect pass from Joel Eriksson Ek, who just decided to pull off a no-look between-the-legs netfront dish to the scorer.

Colorado tied it up after that, but Sam Steel — after missing being a scratch for multiple games — scored his ninth goal of the season to put the Wild up 2-1.

And then it was none other than Frederick Gaudreau who got a breakaway in the second period and made the home team pay for it by doubling the Wild’s lead.

Lars Eller scored to make us worry a little bit in the third period (and the Avalanche were pushing very hard in the final minutes; thank you Gustavsson for doing everything) but Gaudreau notched a shorthanded empty-net goal to clinch the 4-2 victory.

It really was all the guys that don’t get many chances, leading the way tonight over the reigning Cup champs.

With these two points, the Wild are now three points above the Dallas Stars and Avalanche, who are tied with 94 points in 74 games. Minnesota is sitting pretty on top of the Central Division with just seven games remaining and is the hottest team in the National Hockey League.

We’re being serious. In their last 21 games, they have earned just one regulation loss. They are racking up the points and we could see a banner in The X.

That’s Wild

Off the trail...