Kyle Brodziak's Iron Man streak ends tonight vs. Nashville

The Wild closes the regular season tonight at 7 against the Nashville Predators.

If the St. Louis Blues lose to the Detroit Red Wings, the Wild will play the Colorado Avalanche for the third time in Minnesota's five all-time postseasons (1-1). In the second period, Detroit leads 2-0. I will update this later, of course.

In 2003, the Wild rallied from 3-1 down to beat Colorado in the first round. In 2008, after the Wild won the Northwest Division, Jose Theodore and the Avs stoned the Wild in six games.

The Avalanche, with Patrick Roy in his first year as head coach, has gone from 29^th place to a near Central Division title in one year. Colorado is 8-1-1 in its past 10 heading into tonight's finale at Anaheim and went 4-0-1 against the Wild this season.

In tonight's Wild-Preds game, Kyle Brodziak's 231 consecutive games played streak will end. He has played every game since Feb. 25, 2011, but coach Mike Yeo said it would be "silly" to play him tonight. This way, Brodziak will be given every opportunity to get healthy for the start of the playoffs, which are expected to begin Thursday for the Wild.

NHL playoff schedules come out late tonight.

With Brodziak hurt, Nino Niederreiter will play center for the first time in his NHL career on a line believed to be with Matt Cooke and Justin Fontaine. Niederreiter has played center previously in his junior career and has been so defensively responsible, Yeo feels he should be able to slide in for a game and provide a big body and good presence. Cody McCormick is expected to center Stephane Veilleux and at times defenseman Jon Blum.

Clayton Stoner, who sprained his MCL March 22 against Detroit, returns and will be paired with Nate Prosser.

Yeo said tonight may be a meaningless game, but "our goal should be to get to 100 points."

The Predators are 5-0-1 in their past six and Yeo wants the Wild to "match their intensity."

"We have to make sure we're keeping our foot on the gas as much as possible," Yeo said. "We've talked so long about how we feel good about our game. That can leave you in a hurry, too, so we should make sure we're able to keep our intensity up and carry that momentum into the playoffs."

Yeo said his primary focus tonight is to get Zach Parise, Mikko Koivu, Ryan Suter and Jason Pominville quality ice time because they were essentially "rested" last game and Yeo wants them getting enough of a workload to get them ready for the playoffs.

Yeo said Mikael Granlund had another good day on the ice. If the Wild opens Thursday, the Wild will have Monday off and then have a couple hard practices in St. Paul Tuesday and Wednesday. Yeo hopes Granlund can participate in those so he can get the green light to return for Game 1.

Josh Harding is still around. The Wild has talked about Harding having a rehab stint with Iowa (four games left), but so far that hasn't come into fruition and Yeo said he's not sure if it will.

By the way, good to see Preds GM David Poile in the house. Last time he was here, Poile was struck by the puck and suffered major facial damage, multiple surgeries, lost vision in his right eye and missed the Winter Olympics as Team USA's GM.