From the Rink: Wild aims to take care of its own business in Washington

Hello from the nation's capital, where the Wild and Washington Capitals will face each other tonight at Capital One Arena.
It's that time of the regular season where scoreboard watching becomes a rite of passage. Minnesota is locked in a battle with a handful of other clubs for the two wild card positions in the Western Conference.
With a nearly full slate of games on Thursday, the Wild spent the night hoping for good luck around the League. And with the exception of one game, Minnesota got the help it needed.

Arizona lost in regulation to the Florida Panthers while the Chicago Blackhawks lost in regulation to the Philadelphia Flyers.
"When Dallas doesn't win and Chicago doesn't win and Arizona doesn't win ... they're letting us hang around," said Wild coach Bruce Boudreau. "It's like a team that's getting outplayed. If you let them hang around until the third period and all of the sudden they can get it going, that team usually ends up winning the game.
"That's [the analogy I'm using] with this group here is, you just hang [around], we haven't been good on a consistent basis but we're still there. We're one point out right now."
The only result that went against the Wild was Colorado's victory in Dallas.

"I checked it last night before I went to bed for sure," said Wild forward Marcus Foligno. "Now we know that we have two teams ahead of us now. It's a big game tonight, it's a game that we have to take advantage of. We need two points to stay in the hunt here."
None of those teams are in action on Friday, which means the Wild has an opportunity to move into the second wild card spot with a victory against Washington. Colorado and Arizona are currently tied for that spot, one point clear of the Wild.
All teams have eight games remaining.
After getting some help on Thursday, now it's up to the Wild to take care of its own business. But that won't be an easy task, as Minnesota looks to break an eight-game winless streak against the defending Stanley Cup champions.
"You don't want to be looking at other teams and hoping that they crap the bed, so to speak, and having them have bad luck in order for it to go your way," Foligno said. "We've all worked hard all season and we should be in a playoff position and we should want to be able to do it with our own destiny."

In case you missed it

Here is today's
Wild Warmup
Wild TV put a camera on Alex Stalock for a recent practice and got some pretty fun video out of it

Kevin Falness chatted with Wild General Manager Paul Fenton on this week's edition of Wild Weekly
With the NCHC Frozen Faceoff occupying Xcel Energy Center back home, the Wild's University of Minnesota Duluth connections
harkened back to their championship memories
in St. Paul
The third-annual
Wild on the Water fishing tournament
is scheduled for the end of June
The Wild and Minnesota Hockey will honor this year's state champions at
'Skate for State Night'
Here is a look at how the Wild could line up on Friday:
Zach Parise - Eric Staal - Kevin Fiala
Ryan Donato - Luke Kunin - Jordan Greenway
Jason Zucker - Victor Rask - Matt Read
Marcus Foligno - Eric Fehr - JT Brown
Ryan Suter - Jared Spurgeon
Jonas Brodin - Brad Hunt
Anthony Bitetto - Greg Pateryn
Devan Dubnyk
Alex Stalock
Washington is coming off a 5-4 overtime loss to the Lightning on Wednesday night, a contest that opened a four-game homestand for the Caps. The game against the Wild is Washington's final game against the Western Conference this season.
Alex Ovechkin leads the Caps with 48 goals and 83 points. With two more goals, Ovechkin will reach 50 in a season for the eighth time in his NHL career. He enters the contest riding a five-game points streak.
Nicklas Backstrom, Evgeni Kuznetsov and John Carlson each have at least 65 points. Carlson leads the club with 53 assists while Backstrom has 51.
Goaltender Braden Holtby is 27-18-5 in 53 games (52 starts) this season, boasting a 2.95 goals-against average and a .907 save percentage.
The Capitals are expected to ice this lineup:
Alex Ovechkin - Nicklas Backstrom - Tom Wilson
Jakub Vrana - Evgeny Kuznetsov - T.J. Oshie
Carl Hagelin - Lars Eller - Brett Connolly
Andre Burakovsky - Nic Dowd - Travis Boyd
Christian Djoos - John Carlson
Dmitri Orlov - Matt Niskanen
Brooks Orpik - Nick Jensen
Braden Holtby
Pheonix Copley
Watching/listening to tonight's game:
- The contest will be televised on FOX Sports North - It can be streamed live via the FOX Sports App - It can be heard on KFAN 100.3 FM, the Wild Radio Network or via the Wild NHL App