At some point you have to think all of the players the Minnesota Wild have lost over the past few weeks, whether by injury or trade, is going to catch up to them.
Even though they fell to the Nashville Predators in a shootout on Tuesday night, 5-4, they still managed to pick up a huge point in the standings by taking the game to overtime and extending their current point streak to seven games. They are 5-0-2 during that stretch and are guaranteed to remain in a playoff position in the Western Conference through the end of the night on Tuesday.
Considering what this team has gone through this season it is a pretty incredible accomplishment.
They’ve already lost Matt Dumba and Mikko Koivu to injury.
They traded Nino Niederreiter, Charlie Coyle, and Mikael Granlund.
On Tuesday they got another scare when forward Jason Zucker had to briefly leave the game with what looked to be a fairly significant injury only to see him return to the lineup.
Given where the Wild were in the standings when they started trading off players, and at one point had lost nine out of 10 games leading up to the trade deadline, they probably should have been out of this race long ago. But here they are, still hanging around. By this point we know the bottom of the Western Conference field is as weak as it has been in years, but it is still impressive this team has overcome the adversity it has over the past couple of weeks to still have a shot to get in.
Kevin Fiala, who was acquired from the Predators on deadline day in exchange for Granlund, played a big role in helping to keep them afloat on Tuesday when he scored a pair of goals against his former team, including the game-tying goal late in the third period.
But let’s not forget about the Predators here because this was a huge night for them, too.
Their win, combined with the Winnipeg Jets’ 5-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning, put them back into the top spot in the Central Division for the time being. They have not been playing their best hockey as of late, but they have still won five of their past eight games to keep going back-and-forth with the Jets at the top of the Central.
Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.