Russo and Smith: The playoffs felt different for the Wild, but ended with the same hollow result

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ST. PAUL, Minn. — This time, it looked different. It felt different.

The way the Minnesota Wild played. The way they battled and banged bodies and created chances. How their stars, Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy, shined. How they handled adversity. How strong Filip Gustavsson was in net.

One could say, after two overtime losses and a third consecutive one-goal loss to end the season, that the Wild’s first-round series against the Vegas Golden Knights was a coin flip.

“They gave us everything we can handle,” Vegas’ Jack Eichel said.

But in the end, the result was the same.

Once again, in the franchise’s 24th season, passionate, patient Wild fans were left unsatisfied, as the kings of the one-to-two-week postseason exited early again, without a trip to the final eight — never mind a chance for their first Stanley Cup championship.

With largely the same core since the 2020 qualifying round in the Edmonton bubble, the Wild wasted an early series lead for a fifth consecutive postseason when they bowed out Thursday night with a 3-2 loss in Game 6 to the Golden Knights at Xcel Energy Center.

The Wild remain without a second-round appearance since 2015. They are 1-2 at home in each of their last four postseasons.

So much for getting over the “hump.”

“It’s tough,” Marcus Foligno said, “especially when you felt like you deserve better. I think in those past ones, we didn’t. And this one, we did. I mean, if you think about what we’ve done and overcame this year, and the steps we took, and the guys that took steps — big steps — we always say the future’s bright. But, I mean, I really do believe we’re right there.”

This series was so close that it’s also rife for second-guessing.

• The Wild showed stubbornness in sticking with Gus Nyquist, their trade-deadline addition, despite him being one of the worst five-on-five forwards in the NHL this season. Nyquist ended up with just two goals in 29 games (none at even strength) with the Wild and had the game-costing offside call in Game 5.

It might not have been as damning as Gary Anderson or Blair Walsh’s “Wide Lefts,” but the clip of him being inches offside on Ryan Hartman’s go-ahead goal will live long in this franchise’s nightmares.

• Coach John Hynes played top prospect Zeev Buium in a six-on-five situation in his NHL debut in Game 1, then went away from him in overtime in Game 4 and sat him the rest of the way. It may have cost them, as a tired Jake Middleton made the fatal error on Ivan Barbashev’s overtime goal.

Hynes reacted by playing Jon Merrill in Game 5, and coincidentally, the third-pair tandem with Zach Bogosian, which was such a liability during the regular season, had its paw prints all over Brett Howden’s overtime goal.

• Marco Rossi, who could be a trade option this summer, was the team’s second-leading scorer in the regular season but mostly was stuck on the fourth line with Justin Brazeau and Yakov Trenin. He scored two goals, but the Wild brass likely will point to him also being out for Howden’s OT winner and the fact that he had the worst expected goals percentage on the team in the series.

There also was Rossi’s double-minor high-sticking penalty early in Game 6, which led to Shea Theodore’s power-play goal (replays showed, however, that Brayden McNabb lifted Rossi’s stick into his face). Despite Freddy Gaudreau finishing the series with zero points and two shots, Rossi was never elevated over him and averaged just 11 minutes, 8 seconds a game — third-fewest on the team, ahead of only his linemates.

Rossi double minor… pic.twitter.com/ezStIYuJDn

— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) May 1, 2025

• Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said he thought the Wild might put together a traditional checking line against the Golden Knights’ loaded top line of William Karlsson, Eichel and Mark Stone. But Hynes, who had the advantage of last change, primarily kept putting his top line of Boldy, Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek against Eichel and Co.

The fact that the Golden Knights’ top guys came through late in the series might have been the difference between the Wild moving on and not. What’s more, not getting Kaprizov and Boldy away from Stone, one of the sport’s best defensive forwards, and Karlsson, who also has been strong defensively since he was moved onto Vegas’ first line, could explain why Kaprizov and Boldy were largely bottled up the last two games.

Kaprizov had two points in the final three games (and a minus-4 rating) after racking up seven points (four goals) in the first three games. Boldy had one point in the last three (minus-3) after six points (four goals) in the first three. Neither had a point in Game 6.

“Saucered in front — Stone scores!”

“Flips it in out of mid-air!”

🎙 @Dan_DUva

Mark Stone bats a puck into the net for Vegas’ third goal of the game. pic.twitter.com/Mp85fqwlj9

— Golden Knights Radio (@VGKRadioNetwork) May 2, 2025

“We all feel like we could have won the series,” Hynes said. “It’s coming against a team, a really good team. Credit to them, they found a way to get it done. But our guys were right there. That’s where it all stings the most. Sometimes, you get into a playoff series, and you’re like, ‘Well, there was an area that was exposed or something you couldn’t figure out or you were overmatched.’ And that wasn’t the case for us in this series. We just couldn’t find a way to win.”

The Wild were once again resilient in Game 6. Foligno and Hartman, veteran core players who each had terrific series, combined for the game-tying goal at the end of the first period. Foligno grabbed the puck from the boards and fed Hartman above the right circle, and he sent a knuckler past Adin Hill. But they came up one goal short for the third straight game.

that one counted btw pic.twitter.com/oiPG28AmVt

— x – Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) May 2, 2025

“I mean, you feel a little gut-punched,” Foligno said. “It does feel a little bit like that. You feel like, you know, what do we have to do in order to get by, right? ‘So what’s next?’ type thing. That’s the game of hockey. I mean, that’s why it’s frustrating to play it, but it can give you the best thing in the world and what we all dream of. Winning the Stanley Cup.

“That’s our goal and always will be. But it feels like we had something a lot better, a lot different this year.”

The Wild outscored Vegas 15-11 at even strength in the series, but once again, their special teams let them down. The power play went 3-for-13 and the penalty kill finished at 72.2 percent, including giving up a goal early in Game 6. Something has got to change with the PK. It’s been an issue for way too long.

Except for veterans such as Marc-Andre Fleury, Marcus Johansson and Jon Merrill, and failed trade deadline pickups Nyquist and Brazeau, this will largely be the same group coming back next season for the Wild, though they will have some money to bolster their roster in free agency/trade market. Finally, the majority of the pain from the Zach Parise and Ryan Suter buyouts will be gone. The Wild’s anticipated cap overage next season is $2.766 million ($1.66 million for Parise and Suter, $1.1 million for bonus overages this season for Rossi and Brock Faber).

As Foligno pointed out, the Golden Knights are a deep, deep team, and the reality is, they were spending nearly $16 million less than other teams in the NHL.

“We all know what the summer holds,” Foligno said. “We’re all looking forward to that just to have a clean slate, so to speak, and a team that isn’t handcuffed, so to speak. We’re excited for that opportunity, and at the end of the day, it’s up to us in here to do something with it.

“But are we excited? For sure. You would have liked to have seen us defy the odds a little bit this season, with that against us, and prove people wrong.”

The No. 1 priority will be to re-sign their superstar in Kaprizov, who will be one year away from unrestricted free agency. Make him the NHL’s highest-paid winger, perhaps? Gustavsson has shown enough to where he’s Minnesota’s No. 1 of the present — and future — with potential extension talks coming this summer. The NHL’s free-agent class isn’t particularly strong, but the Wild could go after Brock Nelson or Brock Boeser (or use Rossi as a trade chip). Touted prospect Danila Yurov is expected to join the roster this fall. Buium could be a full-timer on the blue line.

Marc-Andre Fleury salutes the crowd and leaves the ice for the final time in his NHL career 👏 pic.twitter.com/FVUjHwz7SI

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) May 2, 2025

This does end the Hall of Fame career of Fleury, who had a profound impact on the Wild, both on the ice and in shaping their culture. His final win was in the team’s regular-season finale, when he came in for overtime. The Wild didn’t clinch their playoff berth until Eriksson Ek’s game-tying goal with 21 seconds left in their final game. The team’s theme was “Choose Your Hard,” and they very rarely did things the easy way.

“Yeah, emotional,” Foligno said of Fleury. “I mean, honestly he’s turning into a brother, that guy. I think you see guys’ careers at the end of it, and you kind of do like a little quick flash by of what you’ve gone through personally. And you hope you never have to get to that point and you can play this game as long as he has.

“You feel for him. I think we all pushed really hard for him and tried to extend this as long as we could. We’re all very fortunate we got to play with him.”

The Minnesota fans chant “Fleury” as the Golden Knights and Wild make their way through the handshake line. 😭 pic.twitter.com/Ze2SHBB0oi

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) May 2, 2025

There was a lot to like about this year’s playoff series against Vegas, compared to all the other disappointing ones since 2015. But in the end, the Wild once again couldn’t get it done, and that was with a healthy lineup after an injury-ravaged season.

They may have deserved better, but just like the previous first-round exits, the feeling was just the same. The quiet locker room felt like all the others.

“Not fun,” Kaprizov said. “I feel we played pretty good. Better than two years ago in the (Dallas) series. It was a nice series. Tough series. I don’t think it was easy for Vegas to beat us. You can see games. It’s overtime, overtime and 3-2 today.”

Only this time, Wild players awkwardly had to go gather their suitcases after packing for the next eight days. That’s how much they believed this group could be different, how they’d not only win Thursday night to force a Game 7, but also win on Saturday in Las Vegas so they could continue on to the second round with a Sunday flight to Edmonton.

Instead of driving to the airport after Thursday’s game for a three-hour flight west, their season is over early yet again.

“We hear the noise of getting by the first round,” Foligno said. “We understand it, and we really felt like we could have done it this year, and that’s the disappointing part.”

(Photo: Ellen Schmidt / Getty Images)

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