2015 Second Round vs Los Angeles Kings

Lore & Background

The 2014–15 season had given the Wild a taste of sustained excellence. After years of rebuilding and roster turnover, the team had assembled a blend of veteran leadership—Matt Cullen, Mikko Koivu, Ryan Suter—and emerging talent like Mikael Granlund and Nino Niederreiter. Their 99-point regular season and a hard-fought first-round win over the St. Louis Blues set the stage for a Second Round matchup that many fans privately hoped could go their way.

The Kings, by contrast, were the standard-bearers of the Western Conference. Kopitar's playmaking, Doughty's two-way dominance, and Campbell's composure in net made them a team that could win any night, in any building. The Wild's identity—physical, forechecking, relying on Bäckström's reflexes and Cullen's veteran wheels—was a genuine counter-punch to that style, and the first game in Minnesota showed the Wild could hang with the best. But the Kings' depth, their penalty-killing structure, and their ability to generate quality chances at will told the story over five games.

What makes this series endure in Wild fan memory is not the scoreline but the *feeling*: the crowd at Xcel Energy Center roaring the Wild into a competitive game, Bäckström pulling pucks out of traffic, the brief windows where the Wild looked like they could steal one. It was the closest the franchise came, in those early years, to a deep-run miracle—and the clearest illustration of how thin the line was between a good team and a great one.

In Their Own Story

The arena hummed before the first puck drop. You could feel it in the floorboards, in the way the Zamboni's fresh ice caught the lights and threw them back in long white streaks. Bäckström laced his skates in the tunnel, jaw set, the way he always did before a big one. Cullen was already out on the ice, skating slow laps, tapping his stick against the boards in a rhythm only he knew. The Kings' warmup was quieter, more mechanical—Kopitar checking his stick, Doughty lining up his shoulder pads. Two different teams. Two different philosophies. The puck dropped, and for twenty minutes the Wild made it ugly, made it theirs. Then the Kings found their rhythm, and the ice turned to a different color. You could hear the crowd shift from roar to held breath. That's the night. That's the one you still talk about in the parking lot, years later, with your breath fogging the November air.

Reader's Guide

Game one in Minnesota set the tone: the Wild threw bodies, Bäckström made the saves, and for a stretch it looked like the seventh seed could shock the world. The Kings answered with their power play, and the game settled into a tight, physical battle that the Wild held within reach until the final minutes.

By Games Two and Three in Los Angeles, the Kings' depth told the story. Doughty and Kopitar controlled the neutral zone, Campbell stood tall in the slot, and the Wild's forecheck—so effective against St. Louis—found fewer seams to exploit. Bäckström was pulled from traffic, Cullen was checked into the boards, and the Wild's bench grew quiet.

Game Four in Minnesota was the one that stung. The Wild came out with everything, generating chances, pressing, making the Kings earn every inch. But one sustained Kings possession, one quality chance in the slot, was all it took. The crowd's silence was louder than any roar.

Game Five was a formality, and the Kings rolled off to the Western Conference Final. Wild fans still reference this series not for the loss but for the *nearly*—the games that were close, the saves that held, the moments the seventh seed looked like a threat. It's the series that proved they could compete with the best, even when the best won.

Did You Know?

• The Wild had just eliminated the St. Louis Blues in the First Round, giving fans a genuine shot at a deep run before facing the Kings.
• Niklas Bäckström, acquired mid-season, became the franchise's playoff face in net during this era and was the Wild's starting goalie throughout the 2015 postseason.
• The Kings went on to reach the 2015 Western Conference Final, where they were eliminated by the Chicago Blackhawks.
• The 2014–15 season was one of the Wild's stronger regular-season finishes to that point, with 99 points, making the Second Round a genuine step up rather than a surprise.