Wilderness Walk: Won the big one

Your daily dose of Wild news, along with other interesting stories from around the NHL.

We can all breathe a little bit easier this morning. On Wednesday night, the Minnesota Wild were facing the Colorado Avalanche in a must-win-if-they-want-to-win-the-division game. Well, thanks to a whole lot of depth players doing their job supplying the offense, the Wild came away with a 4-2 win over the divisional rivals.

It started with a super goal from Marcus Johansson after he got a near-perfect pass from Joel Eriksson Ek, who just decided to pull off a no-look between-the-legs netfront dish to the scorer.

Colorado tied it up after that, but Sam Steel — after missing being a scratch for multiple games — scored his ninth goal of the season to put the Wild up 2-1.

And then it was none other than Frederick Gaudreau who got a breakaway in the second period and made the home team pay for it by doubling the Wild’s lead.

Lars Eller scored to make us worry a little bit in the third period (and the Avalanche were pushing very hard in the final minutes; thank you Gustavsson for doing everything) but Gaudreau notched a shorthanded empty-net goal to clinch the 4-2 victory.

It really was all the guys that don’t get many chances, leading the way tonight over the reigning Cup champs.

With these two points, the Wild are now three points above the Dallas Stars and Avalanche, who are tied with 94 points in 74 games. Minnesota is sitting pretty on top of the Central Division with just seven games remaining and is the hottest team in the National Hockey League.

We’re being serious. In their last 21 games, they have earned just one regulation loss. They are racking up the points and we could see a banner in The X.

That’s Wild

• In case you missed it yesterday, we put out some more details about our switch over to Zone Coverage that is happening in April. We are planning to launch the new site on April 3. But, with the transfer happening and all that technical behind-the-scenes stuff going on, we will not be able to post here from Thursday night until we have the site up and running. If there are any issues or delays, look at our Twitter for information. [Hockey Wilderness]
• Filip Gustavsson has been absolutely unreal this season for the Wild, but there is a difference between being a good goaltender against the entire NHL (including the really bad teams) and winning a playoff series. [10K Rinks]
• The Wild were interested in college free agent Jason Polin, but he signed with the Avalanche on Wednesday. [NHL dot com]

Off the trail…

• Michael Buble, the singer, owns a hockey team? [ESPN]
• Oof. The Ottawa Senators seem to be losing Thomas Chabot for the rest of the season and their late push to get into the playoffs. [NHL dot com]
• Paul Maurice had a little bit of a meltdown at his Florida Panthers during Wednesday’s comeback against the Toronto Maple Leafs. [Sportsnet]