DEAN EVASON

The Minnesota Wild have fired coach Dean Evason and assistant Bob Woods.

Dallas coach Peter DeBoer hasn’t been shy to point out Minnesota was one of the most penalized teams in the NHL this season,.

Minnesota Wild center Joel Eriksson Ek was scratched for Game 4 of their first-round NHL playoff series against Dallas because of an injury that cut short his Game 3 after just one shift.

The Minnesota Wild have delivered a forceful and punishing performance to take the first-round NHL playoff series lead from the Dallas Stars.

Jordan Binnington made 25 saves and the St. Louis Blues beat the Minnesota Wild 5-1 in Game 6 to advance to the second round of the Western Conference playoffs.

Comebacks are hard to come by so far in the NHL playoffs after they were so commonplace during the regular season.

The Minnesota Wild are preparing to play in the NHL's Winter Classic for the first time.

(AP Photo/David Zalubowski)With COVID-19 problems cropping up and four teams currently idled, the NHL has revised its virus protocols in a bid to keep the shortened season on track. Commissioner Gary Bettman said the league is mindful there might be “more aggressive transmission of the virus and will continue to make adjustments" to protocols. That's a key tweak to the original interpretation of the rule preventing early arrivals, which didn't go over well with some players. The moves were made as the NHL sees some concerning trends, including 40 players on the COVID-19 unavailable list. Bettman said fewer than half the players in protocol have been because of a confirmed positive test and many of those were asymptomatic.

In a unique situation like this, youre going from not playing to playing playoff-style hockey, so youve got to embrace the grind mentally, physically.This is a different kind of grind after four-plus months off the ice. Eddie Olczyk won and lost one best-of-five series early in his playing career with Chicago and remembers the nerves of being 18 and 19 years old in those moments. Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour understands that urgency despite being drafted two years after the NHL moved to all best-of-seven series. His Hurricanes face the Rangers, whose president, John Davidson, won the only two best-of-five series he played in with New York. In a short series, Quenneville said, anything can happen.___AP Hockey Writer John Wawrow contributed to this report.