The Wild are playoff-bound, but the five games left in the regular season won't be meaningless.
Where they'll finish in the Central Division is very much up in the air, with the three-team race between them, Dallas and Colorado intensifying on Monday after the Stars won to knock the Wild down to second place after they'd been in first since March 25.
But Dallas' victory over Nashville, coupled with the Wild picking up a point earlier in the evening from a 4-3 shootout loss to Vegas in front of 19,176 at Xcel Energy Center, was what clinched the Wild's 10th playoff berth in the past 11 seasons and 13th overall in franchise history.
"That's our first step," coach Dean Evason said.
Had the Wild withstood a late push by the Golden Knights, they'd be in the playoffs and still atop the Central Division.
Instead, Jack Eichel, Pavel Dorofeyev and Reilly Smith polished off a Vegas comeback in a five-round shootout after Dorofeyev scored his second goal of the night with 35 seconds left in the third period.
During a 6-on-5 setup with goalie Laurent Brossoit (30 saves) pulled for an extra attacker, Dorofeyev flung a puck that squirted into the middle by Wild goaltender Filip Gustavsson.
This was the first time the Wild have dropped back-to-back games since Feb. 13 and 15. They were stalled 4-1 on Saturday in Las Vegas.
"You can't blame anyone for not trying," Gustavsson (23 saves) said about the last-minute goal. "Everyone is trying to block shots and get their guy. Sometimes you lose a guy. They're six and we're five, and you're going to lose a guy somewhere. He happened to be in the slot, and he found a hole."
The Wild were in rally mode first, overcoming a Keegan Kolesar deflection 9:59 into the first period with three tallies in the second.
Brandon Duhaime wired in a shot off a partial breakaway 3:36 into the period for his 10th point of the season, nine of which are goals. Then at 13:57, John Klingberg took a Matt Boldy pass and wove it through traffic on the power play.
That was only the Wild's second power-play goal in the last eight games; they ended up 1-for-2, while Vegas went 0-for-3.
Only two shifts after Klingberg capitalized, the Golden Knights responded on a one-timer from Dorofeyev with 3:26 to go in the second period. But a last-minute rush up ice by the Wild led to the tiebreaker, a give-and-go between Joel Eriksson Ek and Boldy that Boldy buried behind Brossoit with 41 seconds left in the second for his 30th goal of the season.
"The puck was kind of bouncing on me, so I didn't really have much to shoot at," Eriksson Ek said. "I just kinda tried to throw it over to him and hopefully he'd be open."
Boldy is only the second player in team history to post a 30-goal season at age 21 or younger, joining Marian Gaborik. Overall, the second-year winger, who turns 22 on Wednesday, is up to 13 goals in his past 12 games.
"I thought we played a pretty good game as a team," Boldy said. "We played well defensively. We didn't give them too much. Played a lot better than we played in Vegas, just staying above their guys and being smart with pinches and stuff like that. They didn't generate too much off the rush, which is where their offense comes from.
"It's a tough break to see them leave with two points."
The Wild's 98 points are tied with the Stars, and Dallas owns the tiebreaker having banked more regulation wins.
But don't forget about Colorado: The Avalanche are only two points back and have two games at-hand against both teams.
"Now we got an edge on us," Gustavsson said. "We just have to battle back and take the position back."
