Wild clinch playoff berth after win against Oilers

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The Minnesota Wild clinched a berth in the Stanley Cup Playoffs for a sixth straight season following a 3-0 win against the Edmonton Oilers at Xcel Energy Center on Monday.
Devan Dubnyk made 22 saves in his 400th NHL game, and Zach Parise scored twice and extended his point streak to seven games.
"To be able to go out there and not give up any goals against as a group, that's certainly a good confidence boost to start," Dubnyk said. "If there's only a couple of games left, you want to win the games you can and we started with that tonight and we'll see what happens."

WATCH: [All Oilers vs. Wild highlights\]
Minnesota (44-25-10), which will be without defenseman Ryan Suter for the remainder of the season
because of a fractured right ankle
, clinched a playoff berth when the Colorado Avalanche lost to the Los Angeles Kings 3-1 later Monday.
"I just feel real bad for him," Wild coach Bruce Boudreau said of Suter. "He's a guy that's been really durable his whole life. It's probably pretty depressing for him, but we just want him to get better."

Cam Talbot made 37 saves for Edmonton (34-40-6) which lost its fifth straight game (0-4-1).
"We spent more time on our end. You've got to give (the Wild) credit; they smelt blood and went after it," Oilers coach Todd McLellan said. "We played a lot below our goal line and anytime we did get the puck, we were out of gas to jump into the play to make anything happen. So give them credit; they found a weak point and they went after it."
Parise scored on a breakaway at 3:33 of the first period for a 1-0 lead. He scored again at 8:24 of the second period, tapping in a rebound off Jonas Brodin's shot. Parise has 12 goals in the past 16 games.
Joel Eriksson Ek scored an empty-net goal at 19:16 of the third period for the 3-0 final.
The Wild who are 5-1-3 in the past nine games and have allowed two goals or fewer in seven of those games.
"It's going to be just as important to build our game going into the playoffs, so it's not like you're going to taking any sort of break regardless of what happens," Dubnyk said.

Goal of the game

Parise's second goal at 8:24 of the second period.

Save of the game

Dubnyk against Connor McDavid at 15:41 of the first period.

Highlight of the game

Parise's first goal at 3:33 of the first period.

They said it

"They know there's a finish line. The finish line is non-rewarding. You fall behind, you feel like you don't get a break, you miss a net or something like that, it takes a little bit more out of you. We should be more resilient; we're not right now, but we're going home, we've got to push hard for two (more games)." -- Oilers coach Todd McLellan
"With (the) St. Louis (Blues) losing and St. Louis plays (the) Colorado (Avalanche), I don't know how all this math works out. I just wake up in the morning and just hope to see an 'x' by the name." -- Wild coach Bruce Boudreau

Need to know

Oilers defenseman Yohann Auvitu left the game after blocking a shot from Ryan Murphy at 9:26 of the second period. Defenseman Andrej Sekera did not play in the third period. … The Oilers finished the season 17-22-2 on the road. … Wild defenseman Carson Soucy played 15:26 in his NHL debut.

What's next

Oilers: Host the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday (9 p.m. ET; SN1, SNE, SNO, SNW (JIP), ATTSN-RM, NHL.TV)
Wild: At the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday (10 p.m. ET; SN360, SN1, PRIME, FS-N, NHL.TV)