Thanksgiving is a special holiday, but it's also considered one of the benchmarks in the NHL standings.
Since 2000, nearly 80 percent of teams inside the top eight of their respective conferences ended up making the playoffs.
Wednesday night, the winner of the Wild-Winnipeg Jets game was going to stay in a playoff position. The loser was going to be on the outside looking in.
Well, despite facing a team that had Mark Scheifele and Patrik Laine tearing up the league and Blake Wheeler and Dustin Byfuglien — who usually munch the Wild for fun — Minnesota held the Jets to 16 shots during a 3-1 win.
In a tight-checking affair that didn't feature any of the typical nastiness that often emerges in the border rivalry, Mikko Koivu, Jonas Brodin and Zach Parise each scored, Mikael Granlund had two assists and Devan Dubnyk made 15 saves for the Wild's second win in the past five home games and fourth win in the past 10 games overall (4-5-1).
"We have to get these divisional games," Dubnyk said of the Wild's 3-3-1 record against the Central. "And to hang on in regulation is big. We have been so close this year. We feel like our record could be fantastic right now. We have to start getting these good feelings in here and getting these wins, and they'll start to pile up for us."
The Wild topped two goals in a game for only the second time in the past 10. It was working on a stretch of four goals in nearly 14 periods at home when Koivu scored with 59 seconds left in the second.
Koivu's day was a good one. It started with him, his wife and kids FaceTiming with his brother's family. Saku Koivu, the former Montreal Canadiens captain, turned 42 Wednesday. It ended with Koivu's two kids running up to him in the postgame locker room.