{"id":547744,"date":"2026-04-08T17:17:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T17:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/547744\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T17:17:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T17:17:17","slug":"thursdays-game-in-dallas-will-tell-us-a-lot-about-the-wilds-playoff-mettle-twin-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/547744\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday\u2019s game in Dallas will tell us a lot about the Wild\u2019s playoff mettle \u2013 Twin Cities"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is one to make of the 2025-26 Minnesota Wild? They certainly are one of the most talented teams the franchise has iced since joining the NHL as an expansion franchise in 2000 and \u2014 let\u2019s face it \u2014 probably the most talented.<\/p>\n

The Wild have two 40-goal scorers in Matt Boldy and Kirill Kaprizov, top shelf blue liners Brock Faber and Quinn Hughes and rock solid goaltending from Filip Gustavsson and Jesper Wallstedt. They have a superlative playmaker in Mats Zuccarello. are deep in veteran size and experience, and have a coach in John Hynes who has constructed a system to exploit it all.<\/p>\n

\"JohnOne has to be real about this team\u2019s chances when the postseason begins next week. The Wild are built for the Stanley Cup playoffs.<\/p>\n

Sometimes you watch the Wild play and think, \u201cYeah, this team could make a run.\u201d On Sunday, for instance, the Wild fell behind the Red Wings in Detroit early, then scored four straight goals against a team fighting, at home, for its playoff life. By the middle of the second period, it looked unfair \u2014 as if the Wild could have won 7-1.<\/p>\n

Then you watch the Wild take their foot off the gas, and the Red Wings tie the game before Kaprizov caps a hat trick with the game-winner. Yeah, it speaks to the roster quality to have a guy like Kaprizov save two points with his third goal, but when the team loses at home to a series of also-rans in March<\/a>, it can make one wonder if this team isn\u2019t still the same one that lost its past eight first-round playoff series.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s impossible to say for sure until we get a few games into the first round of the playoffs, but we should get a good idea of this team\u2019s mettle when the Wild play at Dallas on Thursday.<\/p>\n

There has been a lot of talk about results not mattering as much now that the Wild have clinched their playoff berth and opponent, that now it\u2019s about fine-tuning the team for the playoffs \u2014 testing lines, seeing which third- and fourth-liners will help the most, getting healthy. It matters.<\/p>\n

But while there is merit to this argument, Thursday\u2019s game is not a tune-up game. It\u2019s a preview. These teams are locked into a first-round matchup and in simplest terms, the Wild have a chance to show Dallas \u2014 a Western Conference finalist the past three years \u2014 that they\u2019re ready to take their spot in the hierarchy.<\/p>\n

As important, a regulation win would tie the teams for second in the Central Division and set up a short regular-season race for home ice in the playoffs. Yes, the players and coaches will tell us, a team generally has to win at least one road game to advance. But stealing home ice from the team that has knocked Minnesota out of the postseason in 2016 and 2023 \u2014 with a combined 8-4 record \u2014 would send a message.\u00a0So would finishing 3-1-0 against the Stars this season.<\/p>\n

One of the reasons the Wild haven\u2019t played in a second-round series since the days of Zach Parise-Ryan Suter Fever is that the best recent teams failed to use the season\u2019s second half to improve playoff positioning (the Wild have won one division title in 25 years, and it was so long ago that the division was the Northwest).<\/p>\n

Others had to fight to the end to secure a spot; last year\u2019s team advanced because of Joel Eriksson Ek\u2019s regulation goal in the closing seconds of the final regular-season game.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s team has a chance to do it differently. The Wild have won five of their past six games with four more remaining. They have earned the chance \u2014 the chance \u2014 to finish second and earn home ice. That would be important. It would matter when the postseason starts, and it\u2019s about more than home ice.<\/p>\n

The Wild earned this chance and should treat it seriously. Win or lose on Thursday, we\u2019ll learn a lot \u2014 not everything, but a lot \u2014 about this team\u2019s postseason chances from the way it plays in Dallas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What is one to make of the 2025-26 Minnesota Wild? They certainly are one of the most talented…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":351822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[463,464],"tags":[535,5,537,38,4,60,1496,43,14,104,718,2125],"class_list":{"0":"post-547744","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl-playoffs","8":"category-stanley-cup-playoffs","9":"tag-filip-gustavsson","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-kirill-kaprizov","12":"tag-minnesota-wild","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-nhl-playoffs","15":"tag-quinn-hughes","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-stanley-cup","18":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs","19":"tag-stanley-cup-playoffs-nhl","20":"tag-uncategorized"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116370228309423751","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547744","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=547744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}