Marc-Andre Fleury hasn’t crunched the numbers to determine what it will take for the Wild to make the playoffs.
“I’m not there yet,” the goalkeeper said.
If he did, the calculations would show The wild still in the running but needing help from the out of town scoreboard.
They are nine points behind Vegas for the final Western Conference playoff spot with 11 games remaining, a push toward the finish line that resumes Thursday against San Jose at Xcel Energy Center after the Wild had four days leave.
“We’re going to do our best, try to win,” Fleury said, “(and) see what happens.”
With the Wild sitting idle after losing two straight points, the Golden Knights played three times and picked up five points from a possible six to extend their lead for the final wild card spot.
What will it take for the Wild to close the gap?
The rest depends on Vegas’ success.
The Wild are at 77 points, so the most they can finish with is 99. At 86 points, the Golden Knights need 14 more points to reach 100 and become impossible to catch. But based on its 39-25-8 record, Vegas is on pace to reach around 98 points.
To eclipse that, the Wild would have to run the table.
(If necessary, the tiebreaker goes to the team with the most regulation wins.)
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Clearly, the Golden Knights have to stumble for the Wild to even have a chance to gain ground, and the defending Stanley Cup champions are 10-10-2 since the All-Star break . If Vegas repeats the 6-3-1 it has had in its last 10 games, the Golden Knights will reach 99 points.
But if they return to the 2-7-1 of their previous 10-game stretch, they’ll barely get over 90.
The two head-to-head matchups between the Wild and Vegas add to the intrigue.
After the Wild host the Golden Knights on Saturday, they will play April 12 in Las Vegas. The Wild won the first meeting of the season 5-3 on February 12.
Yet this is not a two-team race.
St. Louis is also in the mix, with the Blues three points ahead of the Wild and six points behind the Golden Knights. They won’t face the Wild or Vegas in their last 10 games, but they have a favorable schedule.
Only four of St. Louis’ remaining opponents are in playoff position, compared to five for the Golden Knights and six for the Wild. But the Wild have as many games as the Blues against the bottom five at four.
Before their showdown with Vegas, the Wild will face one of those lottery teams, the Sharks.
Coach John Hynes said “the signs point towards” the center Joel Eriksson Ek and defender Jonas Brodin returning from injury after both trained again on Wednesday. That would elevate the Wild to full strength without captain Jared Spurgeon, who is out for the season with hip and back issues, and the timing couldn’t be better to ice their best available lineup.
For any of these calculations to matter, the Wild can’t keep losing.
‘We want to make the playoffs,’ says rookie defenseman Brock Faber said. “We need to win a lot of games here. I think we’re focused. We kind of reset there. It was a good two days of practice and coming back after (Thursday) with some must-win games coming up.”
