Eden Prairie’s Nick Leddy reaches 1,000 NHL games with overtime victory over Wild

Nick Leddy playing his 1,000th game in Minnesota was a twist of fate. Leddy helping the Blues to a 5-4 overtime victory was a twist of the knife.

At about 1:30 p.m. Saturday at Xcel Energy Center, things got awkward.

The Wild are fighting with St. Louis in pursuit of a wild-card playoff berth. The longstanding rivalry between the Central Division teams tends to be physical, and frequently chippy.

The Wild entered Saturday’s game one point behind the Blues and five behind Vegas, which currently holds the second and last wild-card berth.

During a first-period timeout, the Wild honored Leddy, and the in-house cameras panned to a luxury suite filled with his friends and family members.

Leddy played for Eden Prairie and the University of Minnesota. The Wild chose him with the 16th pick in the 2009 draft. Leddy reaching 1,000 games at the X would seem to be fitting... if the Wild hadn’t dealt him away in one of the dumbest decisions in franchise history.

Chuck Fletcher was relatively new to the general manager position in February 2010 when he traded Leddy and defenseman Kim Johnsson to Chicago for defenseman Cam Barker.

At the time, the trade seemed shortsighted. It turned out to be much worse than that.

Leddy would become a steady presence for the Blackhawks, Islanders, Red Wings and Blues, winning a Stanley Cup in Chicago in 2013.

The kindest observation that could be made about Barker in the weeks following the deal was that he might have been a decent player if he had been able to skate.

On Saturday Leddy had an assist, knocked Wild star Kirill Kaprizov off balance on one potentially dangerous rush to the net and wrestled with Kaprizov during a melee at the end of regulation. Then Leddy’s buddy Brandon Saad scored the game-winner in overtime.

“Emotional game,” Leddy said. “For me, it couldn’t have been any better, having Brandon score that goal.”

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Leddy said he had more than 30 friends and family members in the audience, most in the luxury box, and a few scattered around the stands. “I was really grateful for everyone that came out and took the time out of their schedule to come support me.”

The Wild honoring him during the game could be described as strange, shrewd marketing or simply classy.

Did Leddy expect the Wild to honor him?

“I honestly wasn’t sure,” he said. “I haven’t been a part of too many games like that, but obviously they did a great job. I don’t think they had to do that, but I really appreciate it.”

Standing in the middle of the visiting locker room, Leddy was asked about the trade that kept him from calling the X home.

“I don’t really think about it much now, not really,” he said. “It’s a long time ago now. I think I was so young at that point that I really didn’t know any better. At the end of the day it’s a business, and that’s what happens.”

Minnesota hockey fans all but revolted at the time, and were proved right almost immediately and every year since.

A thousand games later, Leddy is more appreciative of the path his career took than angry about how it began.

“It’s hard to put this into words,” he said. “It’s a great milestone for myself. I always tried to model myself after guys like Duncan Keith, the guys I grew up playing with. I had a lot of great mentors coming into the league — Brent Seabrook, Johnny Oduya, [Niklas] Hjalmarsson. It means a lot. Later on in my career, I think it will settle in even more.”

Thanks in part to Leddy, the Wild went winless against St. Louis this month, with the last seconds of their last game featuring a brawl.

“Yeah, it gets chippy,” Leddy said. “A lot of highs and lows for both teams. Both teams are playing for that spot, and we both need wins in a bad way.”

Playing well is the best revenge.