The Wild’s season will be over on Friday, an anomaly for a team that had made the postseason in 10 of the previous 11 seasons. Yet Minnesota managed to keep one thing consistent this season:

They weren’t bad enough to earn a chance at the No. 1 overall pick in this summer’s entry draft. They could, however, get as close as No. 3 or No. 4, and the Wild haven’t picked that high since they chose Benoit Pouliot fourth overall in the 2005 draft.

Despite a 5-10-4 start that cost Dean Evason his job, the Wild made a run at a playoff spot that didn’t officially end until last week in Colorado and in fact went 34-23-5 under head coach John Hynes.

Depending on what they do against Seattle in their season final Thursday at Xcel Energy Center, the Wild will finish either 20th or 19th in the overall standings. A single point would put them ahead of the Penguins.

According to the NHL, if they finish 20th in the NHL standings they will be 13th in the Draft Lottery order with a chance to move as high as third in the Lottery. If they finish 19th in the NHL standings, they will be 14th in the Draft Lottery order with a chance to move as high as fourth.

In their 24-season existence, the Wild have never held the No. 1 pick in the entry draft, and have selected in the Top 5 only twice, taking wing Marian Gaborik with the third overall pick in 2000 and Pouliot fourth overall in 2005.

Left wing Kirill Kaprizov, the only Wild player to score 40 or more goals in more than one season — three straight after reaching 45 through 81 games this year — was a fifth-round pick in 2015.

After making the playoffs last season, the Wild picked 21st overall.

Minnesota fan

Marc-Andre Fleury and the Wild announced Wednesday they had agreed on a one-year, $2.5 million contract extension, officially ending the veteran goaltender’s flirtation with retirement.

Playing for his fourth organization, Fleury said he only would have returned to play in Minnesota.

“I think it speaks volumes to the way we do things here, that a guy like Flower would want to stay here and only here,” general manager Bill Guerin said.

Why?

“I think first and foremost, my kids, they were in school in Vegas, they went to Chicago and then we came here and I’m going to retire and move again to another school,” Fleury said. “I didn’t want to move them again somewhere else.”

That being said, he added, he believes in the team, which should return in large part intact next fall.

“Obviously, very disappointed for the season to miss the playoffs,” Fleury said, “but I believe the group of guys that we have, staying healthy all season, better start maybe … I’m confident we can come back and make the playoffs here.”

Role model

After failing to make the NHL roster out of camp and subsequently playing his second full season at the Wild’s AHL affiliate in Des Moines, Marco Rossi spent the majority of his summer in Minnesota working with Wild staff and players.

After adding 15 pounds of muscle, Rossi, 22, looked like a different player in training camp, made the team and scored 21 goals in 81 games, second only to Chicago center Connor Bedard’s 22.

But that isn’t all it did for the young center. The decision not to return to his native Austria after last season showed the organization that he’s a serious person with serious goals.

“It’s nice to see him get rewarded for it because he made, as a young player, the type of professional commitment that you need to make in the offseason,” Hynes said.

Hynes, in fact, said he’d like to see Rossi’s teammates follow his lead this summer.

“I think the big thing is he made a big commitment,” Hynes said, adding, “You know, he wasn’t traveling all over the place. It wasn’t a trip here, a trip there. He was here, training four or five days a week, training consistently, and that’s how you can really improve in the summer.”

Briefly

Fleury was honored Thursday with the Tom Kurvers Humanitarian Award, given annually “to the player who best exemplifies leadership qualities on and off the ice and has made a noteworthy humanitarian contribution in his community.”

Related Articles

Marc-Andre Fleury signs one-year extension with Wild

John Shipley: Wild find positive narrative during season’s longest road trip

Wild get big effort in 3-1 victory at Los Angeles

Wild’s plan to boost Jesper Wallstedt’s confidence was a success

Rookies help Wild to rout Sharks in San Jose

Prince’s younger sister Tyka Nelson is retiring from live performing with a June 7 show, dubbed Tyka Nelson and Friends: A Night of Purple Music, at the Dakota in downtown Minneapolis. The show takes place on what would have been the Purple One’s 66th birthday.

Tickets are $90, $80 and $70 and are on sale now at dakotacooks.com.

Prince discovered Canadian guitarist Donna Grantis online and invited her to join both 3rdEyeGirl and New Power Generation. (Courtesy of Sacks and Co,)

While Nelson never worked on music with her brother, the evening will feature a host of people who did. The lineup includes: Donna Grantis, guitarist from Prince’s power trio 3rdEyeGirl; vocalists Marva King and Shelby J (who was onstage with Prince during his legendary Super Bowl halftime show in 2007); saxophonists Adrian Crutchfield and BK Jackson; and St. Paul Peterson, who was a member of the Time and the lead singer of the Family, a Prince offshoot group that released the original version of “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

Peterson’s Minneapolis Funk All-Stars will act as the backing band for the night.

Nelson, 63, began writing songs as a child. But she ran away from home around the time Prince signed his first record deal, in 1977. She lived in Los Angeles for more than a decade before she penned her own deal with Chrysalis Records.

Her 1988 debut album “Royal Blue” earned some warm reviews, but failed to find a larger audience. She went on to release three more records, most recently issuing “Hustler” in 2011.

Prince, meanwhile, enjoyed a relationship with the Dakota as both an audience member and performer. Tower of Power, Roy Hargrove, the Steeles and Victor Wooten are among the many artists he saw live at the venue. An April 2016 Lizz Wright show at the Dakota was the last time he was seen at a public concert.

In 2013, Prince played three shows at the Dakota, including his first public performance with 3rdEyeGirl.

Related Articles

New SPCO season will feature musician-curated concerts and Netflix-style memberships

Ludacris and T-Pain added to Minnesota State Fair Grandstand lineup

Minnesota Chorale joins Minnesota Orchestra for energetic program

Prince’s band the Revolution to play First Avenue for the first time in seven years

Aerosmith’s farewell tour will now hit Xcel Energy Center in January

Timberwolves coach Chris Finch knows Minnesota has essentially been defeated in the first few minutes in each of the team’s two losses this month to Phoenix.

The Wolves went down 15-0 to the Suns in Phoenix at the beginning of the month and trailed 44-22 after the first quarter Sunday at Target Center.

After neither start did the Wolves even remotely recover.

“They’ve just been jumping on us from the beginning. It’s been a variety of issues, turnovers and of course defense the other day, too. You can’t spot a team with that much firepower a 20-point lead,” Finch said. “We’ve just been sloppy out of the gates. And some of it is their doing, for sure, and we gotta address those issues. But it’s just the starts have been just poor.”

Turnovers have been the primary cause of the porous starts. Minnesota had 19 first-half giveaways on Sunday, equaling an NBA record. The Wolves turned the ball over profusely in the other meeting this month, as well.

“That’s all it is, man, because they got tough shot-makers and takers and they’re not going to make them all the time. … We just can’t fuel their offense, we can’t keep giving them open looks. We turn the ball over against them at a high clip in the first quarter every time and give the Beals, the Bookers open looks, open threes,” Anthony Edwards said. “If we’re able to get a shot up. We don’t have to make them all the time. If we get a shot up and not turn it over, and get back and set up our defense, the game is going to be a lot different.”

There are defensive adjustments to make, as well. Minnesota has been caught in difficult matchups. Karl-Anthony Towns didn’t look capable of guarding Grayson Allen on Sunday. Wolves radio voice Alan Horton — who watches many of the practices — told Paul Allen on KFXN-FM 100.3 on Thursday that will not be Towns’ individual matchup. So changes are indeed afoot. Generally, adjustments come after Game 1 of a series.

But after playing Phoenix twice in the past two weeks, the Wolves — who have been armed with a bevy of film featuring what doesn’t work and a number of practice days to implement changes — will present their findings on Saturday.

“I think that’s the advantage we have of playing them twice down the end of the season,” Finch said. “We can look at everything, see what we felt could be the best first start, first step in the playoffs.”

“It feels like we have been playing a mini-series with them already. We’re the team that has come out with the L’s and had to figure out something different and adjust,” Wolves guard Mike Conley said. “That’s maybe to our advantage at this point. We’ve got a lot of different things we can do, so we’ll see what we come up with in the next few days.”

It better be good. Minnesota has not been competitive in three meetings with Phoenix. It knows exactly what issues the Suns present and has had the time and resources necessary to zig or zag to regain an advantage.

“It’s a coach’s dream, really. You get a chance to pick it apart. They’ve given us a body of work to go from, most recently Sunday,” Finch said. “Getting a chance to tear it apart and start putting it back together, come up with some answers, and then over the week you get to kind of install it, so it feels like a football game.”

Also in football, each weekly contest is treated a bit like a do-or-die affair. With Minnesota, it just might be.

If Minnesota is unable to correct course now, there’s little reason to suggest the Wolves will suddenly find the key improvisation as the postseason progresses.

So yes, Minnesota does need better starts — both in the first quarter, and, frankly, in Game 1 on Saturday.

The first game of a best-of-7 series is never a “must-win.” But this is a “must respond” after the Wolves were punched in the mouth by Phoenix throughout the regular season.

If Minnesota’s adjustments laid out all week are ineffective in the series opener, then it’s logical to assume the right ones may not exist. It could be drawing dead. At the very least, it would feel that way. In which case, the Wolves’ postseason aspirations would be in grave peril right as the party was getting started.

For a team that’s struggled out of the gates of late, Saturday’s start — and finish — could very well determine what’s to come.

“I think it’s a very, very important thing to the series, and the game, to get off to a fast start,” Finch said.

Related Articles

Anthony Edwards takes his play to another level in the playoffs. But what would that look like in Timberwolves-Suns series?

Matchup issues or not, Timberwolves’ first-round opponent Phoenix would be a tough out for anyone

Conley’s Corner: A vision realized, but not yet complete for Timberwolves’ Mike Conley

Karl-Anthony Towns believes the test of Phoenix in Round 1 is best for the Timberwolves. Here’s why

Timberwolves nuked by Suns, drop to third seed and will meet Phoenix in Round 1