Wild's Playoff Woes Continue With Another First-Round Exit

The Minnesota Wild have made the Stanley Cup Playoffs eight times in the past 10 years, tied for the most appearances in the Western Conference over that time.

Unfortunately, they've also won a grand total of zero playoff rounds over that time.

The Wild had another season come to an end in excruciating fashion on Thursday night, falling 3-2 at home in Game 6 of their first-round series against the Vegas Golden Knights. This marks the Wild's eighth-straight playoff appearance without a series win (they lost in the qualifying round in 2020, so they didn't even make the first round that year), one of the worst streaks in not just the NHL, but all North American sports.

The worst part is that, statistically speaking at least, they didn't do much wrong in this series.

Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy were both outstanding with five goals apiece, and even Ryan Hartman had a strong offensive showing with six points (two goals, four assists). Filip Gustavsson also had a strong showing in net with a .913 save percentage and a 2.72 goals against average. They were even solid on special teams with a 23.2 power play percentage and a 72.2 penalty kill percentage, even if they'd like the latter to be a little higher.

However, there's no stat to show performance in the clutch, and Minnesota fell drastically short in that department.

The Wild lost both Game 4 and Game 5 in overtime, which undoubtedly took some of the wind out of their sails as they looked to take a stranglehold on the series on both occasions. Game 6 didn't come down to overtime, but the Wild made it a one-goal game with 3:27 to go in regulation and simply couldn't find the equalizer even with an extra attacker. In all 3 one-goal games, Minnesota lost in heartbreaking fashion, and that's incredibly difficult to overcome for any team.

There is still hope for the offseason, however. The Wild will finally be free from the buyouts of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter, which previously took up around $7.37 million each in cap space but will go down to less than a million each. As a result, they'll finally be able to spend to the cap ceiling like other teams.

That said, they need to figure out how to play their best hockey when it matters most, and that's something that money really can't buy.