Marc-Andre Fleury could have made himself available at the trade deadline, waived his no-trade clause and would be looking forward to yet another postseason in what, ultimately, will be a Hall of Fame career.

But he didn’t. Instead, he will miss the Stanley Cup playoffs for just the third time in 20 seasons.

No regrets.

“My goal is always to win the Stanley Cup. It’s the best you can get in hockey,” Fleury told reporters Thursday after a Wild practice at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. “But at the deadline, I think we had a chance, and we battled down the stretch here and from the All-Star break on, I think our record’s pretty good, right?”

Fleury will start in net for Minnesota in Friday night’s 9 p.m. puck drop at Vegas, his 40th appearance of the season. The Wild are 16-8-6 since returning from the All-Star break on Feb. 7, and Fleury is 9-4-2. But they were officially eliminated from postseason contention in a 5-2 loss at Colorado on Tuesday.

It snaps a three-year postseason streak for the Wild and a 17-season run for Fleury, who not only is accustomed to playing in the postseason but accustomed to winning there, as well.

Fleury, 39, was a part of three Stanley Cup-winning teams in Pittsburgh, and in four seasons with Vegas from 2017-2021, he helped lead the Golden Knights a Cup final and Western Conference championship, winning 28 times in 47 starts.

“It is weird. It’s surreal that we have a date that things will stop, right? Disappointing, too,” he told reporters. “It’s fun, lots of fun. The atmosphere in the building is electric, home and away. It’s definitely disappointing to be on the outside.”

Fleury is contemplating retirement at season’s end. Whether it’s this year or next, he will retire as the NHL’s second-winningest goaltender behind Patrick Roy, and one of only four to play in 1,000 NHL games. Fleury has said his strong second half has made him more open to returning, but he shed no new light on what that decision might be.

When asked by a reporter if missing the playoffs might make him hungrier for another season, Fleury said, “I guess I don’t know. I just want to win. Winning’s still good. It’s the best. Like I said, this is a disappointing point in the season. But, we’ll see.”

Fleury declined to say whether he has spoken with Bill Guerin about next season, and the Wild general manager did the same when reached by text Thursday evening.

Ohgren to make debut

Wild prospect Liam Ohgren played his first four games in the American Hockey League this month and on Friday will play his first in the NHL. Promoted from Iowa on Wednesday, he will make his debut against the Knights.

Ohgren, 20, signed a three-year entry contract in 2022 but missed training camp this season because of a back injury. After three months off, he said, he was able to play in his native Sweden for the national junior team and pro outfit Färjestad BK, which was knocked out of the Swedish Hockey League playoffs early.

“I thought we were going to play a lot longer in Sweden. We had a great team, and obviously we got swept in the first round,” he told reporters in Las Vegas. “I mean, that’s what I expected. I expected to play there until May.

“But I got the opportunity to play in Iowa right after, and I’m really happy for that, and I got the call, so it’s unbelievable.”

Briefly

Wild coach John Hynes said forwards Mats Zuccarello and Freddy Gaudreau missed practice Thursday for personal reasons. They were not in Las Vegas and it was unclear whether they would return for Friday night’s game.

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The Minnesota Chorale brings out its fireworks for a performance of Johannes Brahms’ “Schicksalslied” with the Minnesota Orchestra, as well as the Minnesota premiere of “Rise Up, O Sun!” by Eleanor Alberga, co-commissioned by the orchestra.

The two choral pieces make up a program that also features the solid artistry of concertmaster Erin Keefe playing a Max Bruch concerto. It concludes with music director Thomas Søndergård unpacking the pent-up longing of Robert Schumann’s “Spring Symphony.”

The orchestra had paired Brahms and Alberga last summer, when it performed a short piece by Alberga called “Tower,” and Brahms’ magnificent Double Concerto for Violin, Cello and Orchestra. Both of those works reflected on the complexity of friendship. This time the orchestra and the Minnesota Chorale play choral works by Brahms and Alberga that set poetry to music.

Alberga chooses a selection from William Blake’s “Vala, or The Four Zoas.” It’s a weird, unfinished collection rich in imagery and heightened emotion, and full of Blake’s constructed mythology and thoughts on the nature of free love and sexuality. Blake’s text is filled with lines like “Here me sing my rapturous song” and “Oh how delicious are the grapes flourishing in the sun.” It’s vivacious stuff, and Alberga’s composition captures the poetry’s lushness with angular, unexpected jumps.

You can read the lines projected on Orchestra Hall’s back wall, but you don’t really need them. The Minnesota Chorale’s singing is precise and crisp. It’s a rhythmic piece that goes to unexpected places with rippling indulgence. Alberga’s instrumentation adds additional delights, with assertive piccolos and a diverse mix of percussive instrumentation.

The chorus shines performing Brahms’ “Schicksalslied” for Chorus and Orchestra, Opus 54, though the vocal part doesn’t come in right away. The work begins with an ethereal prelude performed by the orchestra before the altos join in with the choral melody.

The composer draws on poetry that German poet Friedrich Hölderlin intersperses within his novel “Hyperion.” The words lament the suffering mortals experience in comparison to the easy living of the gods.

The Minnesota Chorale, led by artistic director Kathy Saltzman Romey and accompanist and artistic advisor Barbara Brooks, has been the principal chorus for the Minnesota Orchestra for 20 years, and it first performed with the orchestra over 50 years ago. The two groups sound marvelous together, especially in the Brahms piece with all its dramatic flourishes and seismic dynamic changes.

Between the two choral pieces, Erin Keefe joins the orchestra for Concerto No. 1 in G minor for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 26, by Max Bruch. Timpanist Erich Rieppel begins the piece with a low hum of a drumroll, soon joined by the winds, with the violin solo floating on top.

Keefe’s playing is especially mesmerizing in the second Adagio movement, as she elegantly articulates the complicated patterns with legato bowing. It’s music that acts as a love letter. Later, in the rigorous finale, Keefe shows off her virtuosity with exacting, aggressive playing. There are moments where it’s as if she’s using her bow as a shovel digging for gold.

At the end of the program, the orchestra plays Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 1 in B-flat major, Opus 38, “Spring.” It’s the first time the orchestra’s new director has conducted Schumann with the group. Written as a kind of longing for spring, its timing fits with emergence of warmer weather currently at work in the Twin Cities. It begins upbeat and hopeful, and later hovers over a feeling of breathless anticipation and even impatience. Later, it jaunts and gains momentum toward its forceful conclusion.

Minnesota Orchestra

What:  Søndergård, Keefe and Brahms

When: 8 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday

Where: Orchestra Hall, 1111 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis

Tickets: $30-$111; minnesotaorchestra.org

Capsule: The Minnesota Chorale performs with the Minnesota Orchestra in a program that also highlights the vigorous playing of concertmaster Erin Keefe and Schumann’s “Spring Symphony.”

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AUGUSTA, Ga. >> The third iteration of Bryson DeChambeau might be the most daunting at the Masters.

Once the mad scientist, then the incredible bulk, DeChambeau has entered what he called simply the “golf phase,” and it was enough to carry him to a 7-under 65 in a relentless wind Thursday for a one-shot lead over the same old Scottie Scheffler.

The first round could not be completed because of a 2 1/2-hour delay from overnight rain that drenched Augusta National, leaving the greens softer than they have been all week. The test came from a steady 20 mph wind, with gusts twice that strong.

Among those still on the course was Tiger Woods, who was 1-under par through 13 holes when it was too dark to continue. He next faces 23 holes Friday, an endurance test for his battered legs, as he tries to set the Masters record by making his 25th consecutive cut.

Nicolai Hojgaard of Denmark, one of 17 newcomers to the Masters, was at 5 under with three holes to play. Max Homa was at 4 under through 13 holes.

DeChambeau had his lowest start ever in a major, a clinical performance of power and putting, always a good recipe at Augusta National.

“Trying to be the best golfer I can be,” DeChambeau said. “I’m just in a place where I’m repeating a motion, trying to do the same thing over and over again.”

He ran off five birdies in a six-hole stretch on the back nine, including a two-putt birdie on the par-5 15th when his risky shot under a pine tree cleared the water fronting the green and left him 40 feet away.

“It clipped the tree. I hit four pine needles rather than five, and it worked out perfectly,” said DeChambeau, not entirely rid of his precise calculations.

Scheffler teed off about two hours later when the wind was at full force, and part of him was surprised to see so many red numbers under par on the large, white boards.

“I’ve played this tournament once before in some pretty high winds, and it’s an extremely challenging golf course,” Scheffler said, giving credit to caddie Ted Scott for “guessing the wind correctly” on a number of shots.

He had the only bogey-free round of the 89 players in the field, no small task on a day like this. Three of his six birdies came on the par 3s, one of those when he holed a bunker shot from behind the 12th green.

DeChambeau feels he got fortunate with his shot that grazed the tree. There was no doubting the break Scheffler got with his second shot on the par-5 13th, when he flinched upon hearing a shot hit from another fairway. Scheffler’s ball came up short, and he assumed it would roll back into the tributary of Rae’s Creek that winds in front of the green.

The turf was soft enough that it stayed up, and he chipped it close to make birdie.

“I’ve never seen a ball stay up there,” Scheffler said. “I don’t know if that will happen again this week. I’m hoping I don’t find out.”

Scheffler began as the 4-1 favorite, according to FanDuel Sportsbook, the shortest odds since Tiger Woods nearly two decades ago. And then the No. 1 player in the world — who came into the Masters off two wins and a runner-up finish — played as expected.

It was his ninth bogey-free round of the year.

“Any time you can get around this golf course bogey-free, you’re going to have a pretty good day out there,” Scheffler said.

DeChambeau dropped only one shot, a long three-putt to a back pin on No. 9, and otherwise was flawless. He nearly drove the short par-4 third hole, leaving him a chip-and-putt birdie. He took care of three of the par 5s and got a bonus at the end when he holed a 30-foot birdie putt on the 17th hole.

DeChambeau feels he has settled in with his new life on Saudi-funded LIV Golf, with his equipment and his swing. He is not chasing swing speed like he once did, though he still has it when needed. He says his swing has been the same since that 61-58 weekend he had at LIV Golf Greenbrier last summer.

“He’s always been one of the best putters in the world. When he drives it like he did today — I mean, he drove it really good — and he makes putts, he’s obviously very good,” said Gary Woodland, who played alongside him. “It was a clinic. It was impressive. He didn’t get out of position hardly at all, and he rolled it very, very nice.”

Defending champion Jon Rahm never got any momentum and bogeys on his last two holes sent him to a 73, leaving him eight shots behind.

“Those are some seriously good rounds in conditions like today,” Rahm said. “I haven’t made it easy for myself. I’m going to have to start making up ground quickly.”

Rory McIlroy at least didn’t shoot himself out of the tournament after one round. In his 10th bid for the final leg of the career Grand Slam, he saved par with a chip from behind the 18th green for a 71, the first time he has opened the Masters with a round under par since 2018.

“I held it together well. It was a little scrappy,” McIlroy said. “Probably turned a 3 under into a 1 under there at the end. But overall, still not a bad score. And obviously a lot of golf left to play.”

The first round was to resume at 7:50 a.m., and with a good forecast for the rest of the week, the Masters should be back on schedule by the weekend.