Flipping the calendar to a new page worked well once already for the Minnesota Wild this season. After winning just three of their first dozen games in October, the Wild went on an 11-1-2 tear in November and forcefully established themselves as a top-five team in the NHL.<\/p>\n
As they ease into April after a rare four-day break in the schedule, the Wild remain optimistic that flipping the calendar past a March malaise will be a good step forward for a team that has gone a pedestrian 4-5-2 in its past 11 games.<\/p>\n
After what they admitted was a 40-minute effort in a 6-3 road loss to the Bruins on Saturday, more than one player told reporters inside the quiet visitors locker room at TD Garden that the break provided an opportunity to begin anew.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re one of the best teams in the league. We\u2019re one of the most consistent teams in the league, and I think, obviously, this is a stretch where, yeah, things aren\u2019t going our way,\u201d defenseman Brock Faber said. \u201cBut we\u2019re also not playing quite as good as we\u2019re capable, but that\u2019s part of it. We\u2019re just trying to get \u2018clinched\u2019 next to our name, and from there build our way up to real playoff-style hockey and ramp up for who knows who we\u2019re playing, most likely Dallas.\u201d<\/p>\n
A win in Boston would have secured a playoff spot for the Wild, as will a win on Thursday when they\u2019re host to Vancouver \u2014 the NHL\u2019s worst team by record.\u00a0By contrast, the Wild clinched their 2025 playoff berth in the final half-minute of game 82.\u00a0However it happens, securing a playoff spot will mark the first of many season goals for a team whose potential has not equaled results in the past few weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got some games here to kind of find our groove and feel good. First we\u2019ve got to try and clinch, and then after that we can go from there. I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve played our best,\u201d Wild forward Mats Zuccarello said after scoring a goal in Boston that kick-started a brief comeback effort. \u201cWe just have to try and clinch here and play a little bit better, and hopefully we can get a good feeling going into the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Wild are almost certain to open the playoffs with two games in Dallas. And the final eight regular season games could serve as a tune-up for playing well in the white sweaters, with five of them being played away from St. Paul \u2014 in Ottawa, Detroit, Dallas, Nashville and St. Louis.<\/p>\n
That should be a comfortable setting for the Wild, whose winning percentage is better on the road (21-11-4) than at Grand Casino Arena (21-10-8) this season.<\/p>\n
The team got a day away from hockey in South Florida last week, and responded with a regulation win versus the Panthers. In this season, condensed due to the Olympic break, the extended break is sure to pay dividends in terms of physical and mental health.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust a frustrating stretch, and I think these four days will be good for us to re-set,\u201d Faber said. \u201cIt\u2019s good. Get home, spend time with the guys, relax and then get back on the ice. It will be good for a lot of guys. Obviously, we would\u2019ve liked to end with two points before these days off, but I think we\u2019ll be ready to go on Thursday.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Flipping the calendar to a new page worked well once already for the Minnesota Wild this season. After…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5118],"tags":[5,161,38,5280,4,43,162],"class_list":{"0":"post-532959","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-wild","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-minnesota","10":"tag-minnesota-wild","11":"tag-minnesotawild","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-wild"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116324393524160571","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}