Scoggins: Resilient mind-set is working for Wild

Mike Yeo strode onto the podium, leaned into a microphone and the first two words out of his mouth basically crystallized this team's sprint back to relevancy the past two months.

"Good response," the Wild coach said.

That response, a 6-3 dusting of the St. Louis Blues on Saturday afternoon, continued a fairly remarkable trend as the Wild has rocketed from oblivion to playoff contention.

The Wild has not lost back-to-back games in two months. Think about that for a moment in the context of ebbs and flows of a marathon 82-game season.

That resiliency, combined with the stalwart presence of Devan Dubnyk in goal, makes the Wild's path to the playoffs seem far less daunting than it otherwise might appear.

Clinging to the Western Conference's No. 7 seed (the top wild-card spot), the Wild has 10 games remaining, eight of those against teams currently in the playoff picture and one game against the Los Angeles Kings, a team nipping at the Wild's heels.

The Wild closes the regular season with three consecutive road games against the top three teams in its division — Chicago, Nashville and St. Louis.

The Wild has paddled upstream for two months now, so it might as well continue to row.

"We've put ourselves in a good spot," Thomas Vanek said, "but we've got a long ways to go."

This predicament has become familiar territory for the Wild. The team's playoff push the past two seasons went down to the wire, too.

Two years ago, the Wild limped to the finish and didn't clinch a playoff berth until the final day of the season.

The Wild got hot down the stretch last season but didn't reserve its postseason spot until the third-to-last game. The team finished with 98 points to secure the No. 7 seed, and that point total is probably a safe bet again now.

That certainly looks doable for a variety of reasons, but none more important than Super Dubnyk and the team's ability to avoid losing streaks.

The Wild's revival makes this feel like two distinctly different seasons: pre-Dubnyk and with Dubnyk.

The first team stunk, the other one has been the NHL's best team since Jan. 15.

Dubnyk has allowed 52 goals in the past 30 games. In the 14 games before his arrival, the team's goalies allowed 58 goals.

One doesn't need a degree from MIT to grasp the meaning of that simple math.

The Wild has treated a loss during its turnaround as a speed bump rather than a crater. Not since consecutive losses to Columbus and Detroit on Jan. 19-20 has the Wild experienced a losing "streak."

"It's a good sign," captain Mikko Koivu said. "But that's a sign that we also need right now. We can't lose games in a row. We need to keep winning and need some points."

The mind-set doesn't change. Players realize they can't exhale, can't get caught scoreboard watching, can't assume anything until they have enough points to earn their playoff spot.

Their season, and this final stretch, is fascinating because of the night-and-day discrepancy between the highs and lows.

The Wild looked so lost in mid-January that even unflappable Ryan Suter admitted that he'd "ever seen anything like this."

Now every day feels like a good day. And if the Wild continues at this pace and storms into the playoffs, players should feel good about their chances after earning it the hard way.

"They've got everything going right now," Washington Capitals coach Barry Trotz said this week. "They'll be a team you don't want to meet in the first round, I'll tell you that."

The Wild still has work to do first against a tough remaining schedule, which is why the mood in the locker room Saturday felt businesslike. Players were pleased with the result, but nobody was celebrating in a manner that suggested their two-month winning binge has clouded their perspective.

"We've got a long ways to go," Zach Parise said. "We've got to worry about just getting there."

Many of us counted them out once already this season. Not making that mistake again.