ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The Minnesota Wild closed their third regular season with a win -- and an extra dollop of confidence for their first-ever trip to the playoffs.
Filip Kuba, Andrew Brunette and Marian Gaborik each had a goal and an assist Sunday, leading the Wild to a 4-3 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets.
"It's very good to win the last game and finish on a good note," said coach Jacques Lemaire, who led New Jersey to the Stanley Cup championship in 1995.
Cliff Ronning also scored for the Wild, who finished with 95 points in third place in the Northwest Division, earned the No. 6 seed in the Western Conference and face Colorado in the playoffs. They had 68 in their first year and 73 last season.
"From day one, we just wanted to build a good, strong foundation," center Jim Dowd said. "Now here we are, going to the playoffs."
Gaborik, who had only four goals after the All-Star break, broke a nine-game scoring drought to tie his career mark -- and the Wild's franchise record -- with his 30th goal.
"I'm very happy," Gaborik said. "Everybody is feeling a lot of confidence right now."
Geoff Sanderson scored twice for the Blue Jackets, who got a goal from David Vyborny with 7:56 left to pull within one. Had Minnesota lost, it would've finished seventh in the West and had to play defending champion Detroit in the first round.
"Our motivation was to play a little spoiler," Sanderson said. "We wanted to factor in on where they stood in the standings. There's a rivalry we generated over the past couple of seasons.
"The Wild had a great season. The difference between us and them is probably consistency throughout the season."
Sanderson's right. Though they never won more than three straight this year, the Wild also didn't lose more than three in a row.
"We ran with the underdog thing all year," Brunette said, "and we'll keep on going."
Marc Denis, who shut out Minnesota in the last two meetings, made 19 saves for Columbus in his 77th game this season. That's the second-highest total by a goalie in NHL history. Grant Fuhr has the record, 79 games with St. Louis in 1995-96.
Columbus, which entered the league with Minnesota in 2000, fell two points shy of its inaugural season total of 71 and finished with the worst record in the West.
"It was a letdown for us," Sanderson said. "There are a lot of question marks."
After winning their first three against the Wild this year by a total of 10-1, the Blue Jackets led 2-1 after Sanderson's second goal -- a power-play wrist shot on a pass from Jaroslav Spacek midway through the second period.
But Brunette tied it with a tip-in of Kuba's shot, and Ronning gave Minnesota a 3-2 lead on a power play with 5:12 left in the second.
The Wild, who ended their scoring drought of 137 minutes and 55 seconds against Columbus, got just the second goal in the Blue Jackets' last 32 penalty kills.
Pascal Dupuis picked up his career-high 28th assist for the Wild on Kuba's rebound shot that made it 1-0 in the first.
Notes
- Andrew Cassels notched his 48th assist for Columbus, a career and franchise high.
- Sanderson's 34 goals are also a franchise best.
- Minnesota was 21-0-1 this year when leading after the first period.
- Dupuis finished plus-17 this year. Scott Pellerin had Minnesota's previous best plus-minus rating with a plus-6 in 2000-01.
- The Wild stayed on the ice after the game to give away their jerseys in a show of appreciation for the crowd of 18,568. Minnesota sold out each game during its first three seasons.
- A moment of silence was held for NBC News correspondent David Bloom , who died early Sunday from a blood clot in Iraq, where he had been reporting on the war. Bloom, 39, grew up in the Minneapolis suburb of Edina and played hockey in high school.
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