The Minnesota Miracle [kirill kaprizov]

Epilogue

They say that Lord Stanley is the most coveted and most difficult trophy to get in all of sports.

Unfortunately, the Minnesota Wild have never gotten close to getting the Stanley Cup, the closest being back in 2003 when they made a surprising run to the Western Conference Finals after blowing past the Colorado Avalanche in the second round.

Until this year.

On Kirill's final contract year, but that necessarily doesn't matter since he recently signed a two-year extension with the Wild to stay in Minnesota, the Minnesota Wild were able to accomplish a great feat to make it to the Stanley Cup Finals against the Ottawa Senators.

Since Minnesota was the higher-ranked team, they were able to have home ice advantage in games one, two, five, and seven.

Seven games. Four wins.

Four wins needed to win the mother of all trophies and rewrite NHL and Minnesota Wild history.

The Wild were able to scratch up three games, but the Senators were also able to scratch up three games of their own, tying the series and forcing a seventh game to determine who will win Lord Stanley.

Game Seven.

First overtime.

Tied at an even 2-2 with three minutes left of the first period of overtime.

The Xcel Energy Center was packed with crazed and wild fans, all on their toes to see if the Wild were going to pull it out and finish the job they've been working at for the past twenty-six years, or even before if you count the Minnesota North Stars.

Rally flags waved everywhere. The arena was booming.

The first line for the Wild comes out, and Kirill gets possession of the puck on a pass from a Wild defender for the fourth line.

One player for the Senators hit Kirill hard, although hits like those are legal and regulated in the playoffs. That's part of what makes playoff hockey so interesting.

Kirill passed the puck to captain Joel Eriksson Ek, who was placed on the right wing side of the ice.

Kirill skated to place himself by the net, then Joel passed the puck to Adam Beckman, who took the opportunity to slap shot the puck towards the net.

The puck ricocheted towards the net, then before any of the Wild fans that were at the game could think, Kirill tipped the puck into the net to win the game.

The fans roared everywhere as the goal and win songs played loudly over the loudspeakers, but you could even barely hear the song because everyone was louder than a bomb explosion.

The Minnesota Wild were the 2025-26 Stanley Cup Champions for the first time in club history, and for the first time in Minnesota hockey history.

@minnesotawild Tweeted: YOUR MINNESOTA WILD ARE #STANLEYCUP CHAMPIONSSSSSS