The Minnesota Wild let the Chicago Blackhawks down

The Chicago Blackhawks traded Marc-Andre Fleury to the Minnesota Wild at the 2022 NHL Trade Deadline. In exchange, they received a conditional second-round pick in the 2022 NHL Draft. From there, the Blackhawks became Wild fans for the rest of the season.

That second-rounder would become a first if the Minnesota Wild reached the Western Conference Finals in addition to Fleury delivering half of those wins. Unfortunately, the Wild were defeated by the St. Louis Blues on Thursday night and eliminated from playoff contention.

The Wild fell to the Blues in six games. St Louis won three straight games to come back and defeat Minnesota after being down in the series early. Out of every series in the postseason, this one had some of the most hype and it didn’t quite live up to it.

It is honestly disappointing to see what happened with this Wild team. After seeing them add an elite goalie like Fleury, it seemed obvious that they would do some damage in the playoffs but they didn’t perform to expectations.

The Chicago Blackhawks were let down badly by the Minnesota Wild.

Outside of Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek, the skaters on this team did not carry their weight as they did for most of the season. Kaprizov (7) and Eriksson Ek (3) combined for ten goals while the rest of the team had only six total.

Kevin Fiala had 0 goals, Ryan Hartman had 0 goals, and Marcus Foligno had 0 goals. All of those guys had 20 goals or more (both Hartman and Fiala had 30+) in the regular season so they were incredibly disappointing over the course of this playoff series.

To be honest, the Blues deserve respect for the way that they shut down these Wild players as well. Blackhawks fans might not want to give credit to anything St. Louis related but they deserve it here. With the Blackhawks out of contention, you might as well enjoy good hockey.

The Blues have as hard of a task as there is in the National Hockey League now. After defeating the Wild, they move on to play the Colorado Avalanche who are the best team in the Western Conference on paper. The Stanley Cup Playoffs have been excellent so far and Blackhawks fans should really consider tuning in.