Minnesota Wild veteran defenseman Jake Middleton is not an excuse-maker.

Following his team’s dramatic, come-from-behind, 3-2 overtime win in the regular season finale — without which they would be playoff spectators rather than playoff participants — Middleton took a good humored approach to the fact that he was on the ice for both of Anaheim’s goals, and the two late goals by his teammates spared Middleton any kind of scapegoat label.

“Forever grateful for those six guys that were on the ice with 20 seconds left,” he said, with a broad grin.

When the subject turned to the looming playoff series with Vegas, which beat Minnesota all three times they met in the regular season, Middleton pointed out that all three matches were the second night of back-to-back games for the Wild. But those who follow all 82 games know that the schedule was less of a factor than the injury report for Minnesota most of 2024-25.

Tuesday’s game versus the Ducks was just the 11th time in those 82 games that Wild coach John Hynes has had a full healthy roster from which to fill out his line chart. Prior to the clean bill of health on April 15, the last time Hynes had been offered all hands on deck was a Nov. 10 game at Chicago, when for sure a few young Wild fans were still picking through the last of their Halloween candy.

While nothing is beyond the realm of possibility in this season where some players have gotten to know the training staff better than they know their linemates, barring a fluke injury in practice over the next two days, Hynes will have a full array of healthy bodies at his disposal for Game 1 on Sunday night at T-Mobile Arena.

Most notably, that includes forwards Joel Eriksson Ek, who played in 46 of 82 regular season games, and forward Kirill Kaprizov, who missed exactly half of the regular season after a start which had the talented Russian legitimately in the conversation for the Hart Trophy, given to the NHL’s most valuable player.

“I think that’s a benefit, probably, for Ekky and Kirill that they were off for a long period of time,” Hynes said on Friday afternoon, meeting with reporters at the airport before the team boarded its Nevada-bound charter plane. “Now, that time isn’t easy. They had their own issues that they had to deal with. But I think the rigors of the season and the miles you put on as you go through 82 games, hopefully that can help those guys in the series when it gets rocking.”

While its easy to forget just how daunting the injuries were to the team’s nightly lineup on the way to a 45-30-7 record — good for 97 points — a glance at the game-by-game reports of who was in and who was out show that just a small handful of players went all 82 games without an injury-related absence.

The exclusive quartet includes defenseman Jon Merrill and forwards Matt Boldy, Marco Rossi and Freddy Gaudreau. Another forward, Gustav Nyquist, played in every game for the Wild after March 2, when he was acquired at the trade deadline from Nashville.

Thus, mood swings from early December, when Minnesota had the league’s best record, to late March, when it appeared the playoffs could slip from their grasp, have been both exhilarating and exhausting.

“All 82 games this year, you guys went through it with us, right? It was up and down like crazy,” said Middleton, who also missed time, including four games in April with an upper-body injury. “There was times we thought the world was ending. There was times we thought that we’d already won the league. You guys lived through it with us. I’m sure you’re feeling the same things we are. We’ve got a lot of fight in this room, and that’s kind of…what it’s been all year.”

So, the Wild will face the Golden Knights on Sunday without having to face a different opponent in a different rink the night before. And they will have everyone at their disposal, which is sure to throw a new wrinkle or two at Vegas as they scout their guests from the State of Hockey.

No excuses. The Wild were 0-3 versus Vegas in the regular season, which is one reason the odds-makers generally think a Minnesota appearance in Round 2 of the playoffs is a longshot. But with a healthy lineup in April, there are at least some optimists who see a way Minnesota could beat Vegas four times between now and early May.

“We’re back, right? Like we’re good. We’re confident,” Middleton said. “Especially this time of year. Anything can happen.”

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Two people were killed and six others were injured when a gunman opened fire at Florida State University, sending students fleeing from the student union and putting the Tallahassee, Florida, campus under lockdown.

Authorities have identified the shooter as Phoenix Ikner, a 20-year-old Florida State student who is the son of a sheriff’s deputy. He began firing with his mother’s former service weapon before he was shot and wounded by officers when he refused to comply with commands, investigators said.

Students wait to retrieve their personal items from the Florida State Student Union building, Tallahassee, Fla., Friday, April 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Gary McCullough)

Authorities have not yet revealed a motive for the shooting, which began around lunchtime Thursday just outside the student union.

Officials have also not identified the victims who died. A family member said that university employee Robert Morales was one of those who were killed. Attorneys for the family of the second victim identified him as Tiru Chabba, a food service vendor executive. Here is what we know about Morales and Chabba.

Robert Morales

Robert Morales was a university dining coordinator who had worked at Florida State since 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile.

“Today we lost my younger Brother, he was one of the victims killed at FSU,” Ricardo Morales Jr. posted on social media late Thursday. “He loved his job at FSU and his beautiful Wife and Daughter. I’m glad you were in my life.”

Morales had studied criminology at the school in the early 1990s, according to the LinkedIn profile.

The profile also said he was CEO of Black Bean Food Group, though state records show that the business was dissolved a decade ago.

Morales developed innovative menus, especially Cuban food, and was a former assistant football coach at nearby Leon High School, Kyle Clark, a senior vice president at FSU, said Friday afternoon at a vigil.

“He didn’t just do a job. He lived the job,” Clark said. “He was a stellar person.”

The Morales brothers’ father, Ricardo Morales, was a Cuban exile turned CIA operative in South Florida with the nickname “Monkey.” Ricardo Morales Jr. describes his father’s work as a contract agent for the CIA in the forthcoming book, “Monkey Morales: The True Story of a Mythic Cuban Exile, Assassin, CIA Operative, FBI Informant, Smuggler, and Dad,” which is expected to be published later this year.

“Dubbed ‘The Monkey’ for his disruptive and unpredictable escapades, Morales grabbed headlines for decades as tales of his bombings, arrests, assassination attempts (both those he executed and those he suffered), and testimony constructed a real-life spy adventure unlike anything brought to page or screen,” reads promotional material from publisher Simon & Schuster.

The elder Morales was fatally shot in a bar brawl in 1982 at the age of 43.

Tiru Chabba

This undated photo provided by the Strom Law Firm on Friday, April 18, 2025, shows Tiru Chaba, one of the people fatally shot on Florida State University campus. (Strom Law Firm via AP)

Tiru Chabba was working for food service vendor Aramark when he was killed on the Florida State campus, said Michael Wukela, a spokesperson for attorneys hired by the family.

A LinkedIn profile listed Chabba as a regional vice president of Aramark Collegiate Hospitality who had worked for the company for more than two decades. The 45-year-old Greenville, South Carolina, resident was a married father of two children who had earned an MBA from The Citadel in South Carolina.

“Tiru Chabba’s family is going through the unimaginable now,” Bakari Sellers, one of the attorneys hired by the family, said in a statement. “Instead of hiding Easter eggs and visiting with friends and family, they’re living a nightmare where this loving father and devoted husband was stolen from them in an act of senseless and preventable violence.”

By MICHAEL CASEY, Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) — A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration from enacting a policy that bans the use of “X” marker used by many nonbinary people on passports as well as the changing of gender markers.

In an executive order signed in January, the president used a narrow definition of the sexes instead of a broader conception of gender. The order says a person is male or female and it rejects the idea that someone can transition from the sex assigned at birth to another gender. The framing is in line with many conservatives’ views but at odds with major medical groups and policies under former President Joe Biden.

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U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick, who was appointed by President Joe Biden, sided with the American Civil Liberties Union’s motion for a preliminary injunction, which stays the action while the lawsuit plays out.

“The Executive Order and the Passport Policy on their face classify passport applicants on the basis of sex and thus must be reviewed under intermediate judicial scrutiny,” Kobick wrote. “That standard requires the government to demonstrate that its actions are substantially related to an important governmental interest. The government has failed to meet this standard.”

The ACLU, which sued the Trump administration on behalf of five transgender Americans and two nonbinary plaintiffs, said the new policy would effectively mean transgender, nonbinary and intersex Americans could not get an accurate passport.

“We all have a right to accurate identity documents, and this policy invites harassment, discrimination, and violence against transgender Americans who can no longer obtain or renew a passport that matches who they are,” ACLU lawyer Sruti Swaminathan said.

In response to the lawsuit, the Trump administration argued the passport policy change “does not violate the equal protection guarantees of the Constitution.” They also contended that the president has broad discretion in setting passport policy and that plaintiffs would not be harmed by the policy, since they are still free to travel abroad.

By HOLLY RAMER, Associated Press

A federal judge on Friday ordered that a Turkish Tufts University student detained by immigration authorities in Louisiana to be brought to Vermont by May 1 for a hearing over what her lawyers say was apparent retaliation for an op-ed piece she co-wrote in the student newspaper.

U.S. District Judge William Sessions said he would hear Rumeysa Ozturk’s request to be released from detention. Her lawyers had requested that she be released immediately, or at least brought back to Vermont.

The 30-year-old doctoral student was taken by immigration officials as she walked along a street in the Boston suburb of Somerville on March 25. After being taken to New Hampshire and then Vermont, she was put on a plane the next day and moved to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Basile, Louisiana. An immigration judge denied her request for bond Wednesday.

FILE – In this image taken from security camera video, Rumeysa Ozturk, a 30-year-old doctoral student at Tufts University, is detained by Department of Homeland Security agents on a street in Sommerville, Mass., March 25, 2025. (AP Photo)

Ozturk is among several people with ties to American universities whose visas were revoked or have been stopped from entering the U.S. after they were accused of attending demonstrations or publicly expressing support for Palestinians. A Louisiana immigration judge has ruled that the U.S. can deport Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil based on the federal government’s argument that he poses a national security risk.

Ozturk’s lawyers are challenging the legal authority for ICE’s detention. They asked that she be immediately released from custody, or in the alternative, be returned to Vermont while her immigration case continues.

A lawyer for the Justice Department said her case should be dismissed, saying the immigration court has jurisdiction.

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Ozturk’s lawyers first filed a petition on her behalf in Massachusetts. Initially, they didn’t know where she was. They said they were unable to speak to her until more than 24 hours after she was detained. Ozturk herself said she unsuccessfully made multiple requests to speak to a lawyer.

Ozturk was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper, The Tufts Daily, last year criticizing the university’s response to student activists demanding that Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel.

Ozturk’s lawyers say her detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said last month, without providing evidence, that investigations found that Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.