The 2015-16 Minnesota Wild season officially ended on Sunday with the 5-4 loss to Dallas. It most certainly was a roller coaster ride from the very beginning to the sudden end. A season that began with great promise, coming off their strong finish in 2014-15. Hopes were high for a full season of Devan Dubnyk in the Wild net and a returning squad intact that seemed poised to take the next step.

That appeared to be the case as the Wild got off to a very good start through the first half of the season going 20-10-6. At that point the hope was to contend for the Central Division title as they were right in the thick of a very tight race with Dallas, Chicago, and St. Louis. Then the clock struck midnight on December 31, 2015 and the Wild season took a significant turn for the worse. They struggled through January and much of February going 3-12-4 and falling out of the top eight in the conference altogether.

The hope then became can they turn things around enough to get back into the playoff picture at all. Enter John Torchetti following the February 13th loss at home to the Boston Bruins, the 8th consecutive Wild defeat, which ultimately cost Mike Yeo his job.

Under Torchetti the Wild immediately turned things around winning the first four games and scoring 21 goals in the process including the 6-1 drubbing of the Blackhawks at TCF Bank Stadium. Once again hope was renewed in the Wild and the playoff chase was back on track.

A 15-6-1 stretch under Torchetti had the Wild on the brink of securing a playoff spot with five games to play. Then the offense began to sputter once again, as the Wild managed just 6 goals in their final five games dropping all five decisions. But hope was once again restored thanks to the collapse of the Colorado Avalanche opening the door for the Wild to secure the final Western Conference playoff berth.

The Wild drew the Western Conference regular season champs, the Dallas Stars in round one. And once again the hope was that the Wild would somehow find their game against a very good, but also a very vulnerable Dallas Stars team. The Stars achilles heel being their goaltending and very average defense.

The Wild woes continued in game one as they dropped the first one by a 4-0 score. In game two they came out with a much better effort but still came out on the losing end by a 2-1 score. Game three back in St. Paul saw the Wild play fall behind 2-0 very quickly, but hope came in the form of a late 1st period goal by Chris Porter. The Wild tied the game in the second and then took the lead for good en route to a 5-3 win. After dropping game 4 at home the hope was for the Wild to somehow muster up an effort worthy of a win in Dallas to bring the series back for a game six in the state of hockey.

That hope seemed to be lost after the Wild blew 2-0 and 3-2 leads and trailed the Stars 4-3 late in the third period. Captain Mikko Koivu restored Wild hopes with a huge game tying goal with just over three minutes left in regulation. Koivu once again deliver in OT to keep the Wild alive in the series.

Game six was met with great anticipation from the home faithful. The Stars did their best to erase the notion that the Wild had any hope left as they blitzed the Wild for a 3-0 first period lead. A Jamie Benn snipe in the final minute of the second period zapped some more life out of the building.

Just when it appeared that all hope was lost Jarred Spurgeon battled in the crease to get the Wild on the board early in the third period. Sixteen seconds later that glimmer of hope that Spurgeon had sparked became a bit brighter as Jonas Brodin connected to cut the Stars lead in half. Spurgeon netted his second of the game four and half minutes later, and the building was absolutely rocking as the hope of a comeback was materializing. A fortuitous bounce gave the Stars back their two goal with nine and a half minutes to play, but even that did not allow the Wild to lose hope. Jason Pominville collected a rebound of Brodin's shot and burried his fourth of the series to cut the Stars lead to one with just under four minutes to play.

The hope of the comeback was alive and kicking in the Xcel Energy Center. With less than a minute to play Nino Niederreiter brought the home crowd to their feet as he fired a shot from in tight that caught Kari Lehtonen's right pad. for a game saving stop. But wait just a minute, the newly added cross bar camera was being called upon in one last desperate hope for the Wild and their fans to take one more look at this shot and save attempt. But in the end the puck did not fully cross the line before Lehtonen's pad pulled it back out and the final hope was dashed on the Wild season.

Yes, the Wild season was at times an absolute train wreck. One in which it was sometimes very hard to watch, but one that you just couldn't look away either. So we may not look back on the 2015-16 season as one of the best in Wild history, but we cannot deny they had us watching and hoping until the bitter end.

Thank you Wild and Hockeybuzz Wild Community!

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