Winger Matt Boldy scored with 18 seconds left in 3-on-3 action after center Joel Eriksson Ek buried his own rebound with 22 seconds left in the third period to guarantee the Wild (45-30-7) the point they needed to secure the first wild card in the Western Conference on their own accord (with 97 points) rather than needing the Blues or Flames to lose.
Marcus Johansson opened the scoring at 9:47 into the first period, accepting a Mats Zuccarello feed and skating to the inside for a wrister that sailed by Anaheim goalie Lukas Dostal, who finished with 37 saves.
The Ducks answered back 4:01 later when Alex Killorn got on the end of a bouncing puck in front, and that stalemate held until Sam Colangelo backhanded in a 2-on-1 pass 8:45 into the third. Filip Gustavsson had 22 stops before Marc-Andre Fleury – in potentially the last appearance of his NHL career – took over for overtime and had five saves. The Wild went 0-for-2 on the power play while Anaheim was 0-for-1 after blanking in overtime.
As if the Wild not clinching until their last game wasn’t symbolic enough for how roundabout their season has been, their health doubled down on that fact.
This was the first time the Wild had everyone available since Nov. 10. The following 66 games became the real-life version of Whack-a-Mole: When someone would heal, someone else would get hurt.
It’s easier to identity who didn’t get injured. Boldy, Frederick Gaudreau and Marco Rossi are the only players to appear in all 82 games, while Jonas Brodin, Jake Middleton, captain Jared Spurgeon, Eriksson Ek and Zuccarello all had significant absences.
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