The Minnesota Wild was always considered a dark horse to make a deep run into the playoffs. Despite possessing some high-end talent and youth, there were questions about the side's experience and goaltending and whether it could overcome these deficiencies to be a potential contender. Those questions were answered on Tuesday May 13 when the side was eliminated from contention in Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals. Here is a look at some of the best and worst moments of the team's 2013-14 season.

Highs

The team won nine of 11 games to start November and also managed a record of nine wins, four losses and one overtime/shootout defeat in January. The Wild did not lose in regulation throughout February and finished out the year with four wins in six games. Minnesota's biggest victory of the season came on March 18 when the team destroyed the NY Islanders 6-0 on Long Island.

Jason Pominville led the team in scoring with 30 goals and 30 assists while Zach Parise put up 29 goals and 56 points; he also scored 14 points in the playoffs. The team's young stars Nino Niederreiter, Charlie Coyle and Mikael Grandlund had stellar seasons. After scoring only one point in 2011-12, Niederreiter bounced back with 14 goals and 22 assists. Coyle had 30 points while Granlund scored 41 points.

The Wild had the seventh best home record in the league with 26 wins, 10 regulation losses and five shootout/overtime defeats. The team also won five of the six games played at St. Paul in the postseason and had been undefeated until it lost in overtime against Chicago in Game 6. The Wild also had the seventh lowest goal against average despite a difficult goaltending situation. Speaking of which...

Lows

While goaltending was admittedly solid for the most part, Minnesota struggled to find a keeper that could stay healthy. The team dressed six goaltenders this season and all of them, except for Niklas Backstrom, performed rather well. Ilya Bryzgalov and Darcy Kuemper were men in the pipes. While Kuemper put up solid numbers, Bryzgalov struggled throughout. Backstrom, who was arguably the team's starter at the beginning of the year, played in 21 games but posted a .899 save percentage.

Aside from that, the team's worst stretch in the regular season was a six-game losing streak between Dec. 19 and Dec. 31.
Dany Heatley continued his decline with only 12 goals and 16 assists in 78 games. It is shocking to remember that the 33-year-old was once a 50 goal and 100-point scorer. He scored 21 points during the lockout-shortened season in 2012-13 but had 53 points in 2011-12. His points-per-game total has declined in every season since 2009-10 when he put up 82 points in 82 games. He was slightly better in the playoffs with six points in 11 games.

Team MVP

Zach Parise was signed to an astronomical deal a few years ago and was brought in to be one of the team's top leaders. He had solid offensive numbers throughout the regular season and was even better when the playoffs rolled around. He scored five game-winning goals throughout the regular season, tied for the team lead with Pominville.

Elimination Scapegoat

Minnesota did almost everything right in the series against the Chicago Blackhawks. The penalty kill did an effective job of shutting down Chicago's power play for most of the game. The power play was decent. The top players managed to score points here and there. But the bottom line is that the team was simply not good enough to top the champions. And the main reason that Minnesota stood no chance was because the goaltending was not up to the standard. While Chicago's Corey Crawford stopped 92.5 percent of the shots he faced in the series, Minnesota's Ilya Bryzgalov only stopped 90.4 percent of the shots he faced. Bryzgalov actually faced about 14 shots less than Crawford did, but stopped a lower percentage of those shots. While he did not allow more than two goals in the final three games of the series, he conceded three and four in the opening two games and put his team in a 2-0 series hole. Goaltending was always going to either sink Minnesota or elevate it; there is no doubt that better net minding would have given Minnesota a better shot in this series.