Wild set for playoff matchup with Golden Knights: Schedule, stats and more
The Minnesota Wild are back in the NHL playoffs, and after a season threatened but never fully derailed by injury, they're getting healthy at the right time.
The Wild locked down a playoff spot with an overtime win against the Anaheim Ducks in their final game of the regular season.
Here's everything you need to know about the Wild in the playoffs.
Where did the Wild finish in the standings?
The Wild ended the regular season with a 45-30-7 record, good for fourth in the Central division and seventh in the Western Conference overall. They're locked into the first wild card spot.
Who will the Wild play in the first round?
The Wild have a matchup with the Vegas Golden Knights up first. The Knights are 49-22-10 with one game left, but they've sealed up the West's No. 2 spot.
What is the Wild's playoff schedule?
Here's the full schedule for the first-round matchup:
- Game 1: Sunday, 9 p.m. CT at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas
- Game 2: Tuesday, 10 p.m. CT at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas
- Game 3: Thursday, 8 p.m. CT at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota
- Game 4: Saturday, April 26, 3 p.m. CT at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul
- Game 5: Tuesday, April 29, 8:30 p.m. CT at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas
- Game 6: Thursday, May 1, time TBD at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul
- Game 7 (if necessary): Saturday, May 3, time TBD at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas
Are tickets on sale yet?
Tickets for the Wild's home games at Xcel Energy Center in the first-round series are now available on the team's website — as noted above, the games have not actually been scheduled yet.
What do the stats say about the Wild?
Minnesota finished 24th in goals scored and 16th in goals allowed — not ideal for a team hoping to make noise in the playoffs, though they were missing two of their top players (Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek) for much of the season, not to mention the injuries to players further down the lineup.
Most of the advanced stats, including Corsi (which measures the totality of all shot attempts on both offense and defense), peg the Wild as a worse-than-average team.
Here are perhaps the most relevant stats for their first-round matchup. In three games against the Golden Knights this season, the Wild went 0-3 and were outscored 12-4.
