How Will the Wild Handle the Last Stretch of the Season?

As the Minnesota Wild‘s season comes to a close, they approach what is undoubtedly their toughest stretch of the year.

The Wild are currently fighting to stay alive and make a run in the playoffs, as they currently hold one of the two wild card spots in the Western Conference.  With 91 points on the season, they are only five points ahead of the ninth place standing in the Western Conference, which would leave them without a playoff spot.  What makes this fact even more intimidating for the Wild is that one of teams fighting for the same wild card spot as them is last season’s Stanley Cup Champions, the Los Angeles Kings.  The Kings have moved up into the sixth playoff spot recently, but since their division is so competitive, they could be pushed down into a wildcard spot.  Since the Kings are last year’s champions, they obviously are still a very skilled team, as they only lost veteran defenseman Willie Mitchell, Colin Fraser and Andrew Campbell over the offseason.

With the season wrapping up the Minnesota Wild have many important games to finish on, one of the most important being against the Los Angeles Kings on March 28th.  Beating the Kings would help the Wild a lot, because as mentioned before, the Kings are probably the biggest threat to the Wild’s playoff chances, since they are both potentially fighting for the same spot.  Along with this one, the Wild do not have a single game they can afford to lose, as at this time in the season, every point counts.  With that being said, this task requires them to play at their best, because every team they have to face for the rest of the year currently has a playoff spot, or is very close to one.  (Here is a link to the schedule, if you wish to see who they play: http://wild.nhl.com/club/calendar.htm)

The Wild, as are their fans, are hopeful to secure a spot in the playoffs, and if Devan Dubnyk, along with the team in front of him perform well, it is likely that they will successfully make it through the tough ending of their season.  The Wild may have an extremely tough schedule to wrap up the season, but they are also a tough team; one that overcame a terrible slump earlier in the year.  Not many other teams can say they came from being a lifeless looking team, to the best team since the all-star break; which makes many believe that they will finish off with a winning record, and hopefully, a playoff spot.