The Minnesota Wild Are In Danger Of Finishing In the Mushy Middle

Good news for those who went to bed after the Minnesota Wild took a 2-0 win over the Anaheim Ducks last night: The Vegas Golden Knights dropped their game against the Calgary Flames. Getting two points, with zero for Vegas, means that Minnesota climbs within four points of the second Wild Card spot. Even better, they also have an opportunity to pick off the Los Angeles Kings, who are also at 77 points to the Wild's 73.

But, of course, there is no unqualified good news for Minnesota this season. When Evolving-Hockey's playoff odds took last night's action into account, the Wild's playoff odds were at just 22.8%. Vegas and LA have one and two games in hand, which is part of the overwhelming odds in favor of the two Pacific Division teams. So is the fact that these teams are almost out of time. Minnesota has to make up a four-point gap in only 15 games.

The Wild have surged with a 12-4-2 record since the All-Star Break. It's been exciting, with the President's Day thriller against the Vancouver Canucks and this week's overtime goalie pull against Nashville being highlights. But where has it gotten them?

If things stand where they are today: Sadness. HockeyViz' Micah Blake McCurdy used to post his "Sadness" rankings, which were the odds a team would miss the playoffs and pick outside the top five in the NHL Draft.

Here's an example from January of last season:

The jockeying for a top-5 draft pick might be a bit less interesting now since lottery rules changes have removed the third overall pick and limited how far lottery winners could move up. Unfortunately, the concept still applies to the Minnesota Wild. 

Congratulations to the State of Hockey: The Wild now has the most points of any team outside of the playoffs. No matter what Minnesota does, all the Golden Knights, Kings, and Predators (who have 80 points) have to do is pretty much keep pace with the Wild to shut them out of a playoff spot. The Wild do not control their destiny, even with two head-to-head matchups with Vegas and LA.

Evolving-Hockey's projections as of March 15 have Minnesota finishing around 91 points, which would secure them the 16th-best draft lottery odds. At that point, they could win the Draft Lottery outright (they'd have 1.1% odds) and only be able to move up 10 spots to the sixth overall pick — outside the top five. Sadness.

That wasn't where things were trending before this post-All-Star-Break run. Minnesota entered the break with 47 points, enough to put them at the sixth-best Draft Lottery odds entering February 7. That would've been a combined 15.2% chance of winning a top-two spot and a guarantee to pick no worse than No. 8 overall. 

If the Wild win the 23%-odds lottery to get into the playoffs, that's arguably a better position. It's two home games (minimum) of revenue to make ownership happy, and it gives Minnesota fans a reason to watch the first round (though, historically, only the first round). Making the playoffs when everything went wrong is perhaps something the Wild could use to sell Kirill Kaprizov on the franchise.

But if the 77% wins out? We can write Bill Guerin's script for the clean-out day presser right now. We didn't quite finish what we started, but we liked the resilience our team showed down the stretch, Guerin will tell the media. We had some injuries that made it tough, but we battled. I like our team going forward.

However, the reality is that the Wild will be stuck in the mushiest middle possible. It's not out of the question that Minnesota could get a really good player at No. 16 overall, of course. Historically, you could land a star player, like the Arizona Coyotes did with Jakub Chychrun in 2016, the New York Islanders did by getting Mat Barzal in 2015, or the St. Louis Blues did in drafting Vladimir Tarasenko in 2010. Judd Brackett has seemed to spin worse picks into gold.

But there are a bunch of Just A Guys in the history of 16th-overall picks. You've probably heard of Sonny Milano (2014), Nikita Zadorov (2013), and Joel Armia (2011) as they've bounced around the league. They're not impact players, though, which describes most 16th overall picks.

Wild fans should be familiar with this typical range of outcomes at Pick 16. In 2009, Minnesota drafted Nick Leddy, only to trade him and veteran Kim Johnsson for Cam Barker within a year. Minnesota watched him from afar as he emerged as a good-but-not-great top-four defenseman. The year before, they drafted Colton Gillies in that spot, and Minnesota watched from not afar enough as he posted three goals and 10 points in 89 unremarkable games.

It's a missed opportunity, but (somewhat refreshingly?) not one of the self-inflicted variety. Unlike the missed opportunities around the trade deadline, it's hard to say what Guerin should have done to avoid Minnesota's mushy-middle fate. He couldn't hang up a sign in the locker room that reads, "Just Lose, Baby." It's not like he's going to talk to Kaprizov, Matt Boldy, and Joel Eriksson Ek and tell them to stop scoring goals. Maybe the best way to keep the tank going would have been to put struggling Filip Gustavsson in net. But even then, he's started as many games as Marc-Andre Fleury since the All-Star Break.

Still, just because you can't be mad doesn't mean you can't be disappointed by the missed opportunity. Just five weeks ago, Minnesota had a decent shot at being in a position to draft the kind of impact player that's eluded them for most of their existence. Now, scoring center Macklin Celebrini, impact Russian winger Ivan Demidov, and big, mobile offensive defensemen Artyom Levshunov, Anton Silayev, and Sam Dickinson are all but off the table. It's not the kind of thing to be angry about, but Sadness is still Sadness, and it seems like the likeliest outcome after these next 15 games.