The Wild won home-ice advantage for the first round of the playoffs but lost a key player.
Marcus Foligno left injured after getting kneed by the Avalanche's Kurtis MacDermid, an ominous exit that loomed over an edgy regular-season finale that the Wild won 4-1 on Friday in front of an announced 19,261 at Xcel Energy Center to put an exclamation point on the fact it will host Game 1 against the Blues.
A St. Louis loss minutes earlier had already clinched that for the Wild, which locked up second place in the Central Division with a franchise-record 113 points.
"We wanted to take care of it ourselves," captain Jared Spurgeon said.
The first round playoff series begins Monday at 8:30 p.m. at the X. What the team's lineup looks like for that opener is to be determined.
Foligno was hurt 5 minutes, 28 seconds into the first period when he was clipped by MacDermid, a collision that spun Foligno to the ice. He was eventually helped up and escorted down the tunnel from the bench. The Wild later announced Foligno wouldn't return because of a lower-body injury.
"It's an awful thing to happen, especially this time," coach Dean Evason said. "Forget about any time. What's the point of it?"
The plan is for Foligno to get evaluated on Saturday.
"It's serious enough that one of the toughest guys I've ever seen can't come back and play," Evason said.
MacDermid was tossed from the action, receiving a five-minute major for kneeing and game misconduct.
That situation only inflamed an already testy atmosphere.
Earlier in the first period, Colorado's Logan O'Connor pushed Dmitry Kulikov into the boards and that led to a lengthy brawl between O'Connor and the Wild's Brandon Duhaime.
By then, the Wild was already ahead by a goal.
Just 58 seconds after puck drop and on the team's second shot, Jordan Greenway took a Foligno pass and slipped the puck between Avalanche goalie Pavel Francouz and the post.
That lead doubled at 4:12 when Kirill Kaprizov circled the zone before finding Tyson Jost in the slot for a one-timer and Jost's second goal with the Wild since a trade from Colorado, which was resting some of its go-to players like Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Darcy Kuemper.
"I was just battling in front and kind of knew that if I got open, he was going to find me," Jost said.
The rest of the first was filled with penalties; both sides combined for five infractions the rest of the way, but neither power play converted.
Kaprizov picked up a second point at 3:46 of the second when he poked in a loose puck in the crease to finish with 47 goals. Add in his 61 assists, and he racked up an impressive 108 points to rank fifth in the NHL and become the Wild's first top-five scorer.
"He makes everyone around him so much better," said Spurgeon, who snagged a career-high 30th assist on the goal in his first game back from an upper-body injury. "Whether it's his work ethic he has away from the puck or sometimes you see there's three guys on him and he comes out of the corner with it and makes a play. So he's done great things for us."
Matt Dumba was also back from an upper-body injury, but the Wild was still without Mats Zuccarello (lower body).
Marc-Andre Fleury was in net, and he made 27 stops to improve to 9-2 since a trade from the Blackhawks. The only puck that eluded him was a shot by Nazem Kadri at 5:38 of the second period. Francouz had 18 saves for Colorado, and he was pulled before Greenway scored his second of the game into an empty net with 32 seconds left.
This sends the Wild into the playoffs on a 19-2-3 tear, including a 10-1-2 run over the past 13 games. The last time the team had home ice was its five-game, first-round loss to the Blues in 2017.
"To start here at home with the crowd we've had and the energy that's been in the building is something we're looking forward to," Spurgeon said.
