The Wild’s season will be over on Friday, an anomaly for a team that had made the postseason in 10 of the previous 11 seasons. Yet Minnesota managed to keep one thing consistent this season:

They weren’t bad enough to earn a chance at the No. 1 overall pick in this summer’s entry draft. They could, however, get as close as No. 3 or No. 4, and the Wild haven’t picked that high since they chose Benoit Pouliot fourth overall in the 2005 draft.

Despite a 5-10-4 start that cost Dean Evason his job, the Wild made a run at a playoff spot that didn’t officially end until last week in Colorado and in fact went 34-23-5 under head coach John Hynes.

Depending on what they do against Seattle in their season final Thursday at Xcel Energy Center, the Wild will finish either 20th or 19th in the overall standings. A single point would put them ahead of the Penguins.

According to the NHL, if they finish 20th in the NHL standings they will be 13th in the Draft Lottery order with a chance to move as high as third in the Lottery. If they finish 19th in the NHL standings, they will be 14th in the Draft Lottery order with a chance to move as high as fourth.

In their 24-season existence, the Wild have never held the No. 1 pick in the entry draft, and have selected in the Top 5 only twice, taking wing Marian Gaborik with the third overall pick in 2000 and Pouliot fourth overall in 2005.

Left wing Kirill Kaprizov, the only Wild player to score 40 or more goals in more than one season — three straight after reaching 45 through 81 games this year — was a fifth-round pick in 2015.

After making the playoffs last season, the Wild picked 21st overall.

Minnesota fan

Marc-Andre Fleury and the Wild announced Wednesday they had agreed on a one-year, $2.5 million contract extension, officially ending the veteran goaltender’s flirtation with retirement.

Playing for his fourth organization, Fleury said he only would have returned to play in Minnesota.

“I think it speaks volumes to the way we do things here, that a guy like Flower would want to stay here and only here,” general manager Bill Guerin said.

Why?

“I think first and foremost, my kids, they were in school in Vegas, they went to Chicago and then we came here and I’m going to retire and move again to another school,” Fleury said. “I didn’t want to move them again somewhere else.”

That being said, he added, he believes in the team, which should return in large part intact next fall.

“Obviously, very disappointed for the season to miss the playoffs,” Fleury said, “but I believe the group of guys that we have, staying healthy all season, better start maybe … I’m confident we can come back and make the playoffs here.”

Role model

After failing to make the NHL roster out of camp and subsequently playing his second full season at the Wild’s AHL affiliate in Des Moines, Marco Rossi spent the majority of his summer in Minnesota working with Wild staff and players.

After adding 15 pounds of muscle, Rossi, 22, looked like a different player in training camp, made the team and scored 21 goals in 81 games, second only to Chicago center Connor Bedard’s 22.

But that isn’t all it did for the young center. The decision not to return to his native Austria after last season showed the organization that he’s a serious person with serious goals.

“It’s nice to see him get rewarded for it because he made, as a young player, the type of professional commitment that you need to make in the offseason,” Hynes said.

Hynes, in fact, said he’d like to see Rossi’s teammates follow his lead this summer.

“I think the big thing is he made a big commitment,” Hynes said, adding, “You know, he wasn’t traveling all over the place. It wasn’t a trip here, a trip there. He was here, training four or five days a week, training consistently, and that’s how you can really improve in the summer.”

Briefly

Fleury was honored Thursday with the Tom Kurvers Humanitarian Award, given annually “to the player who best exemplifies leadership qualities on and off the ice and has made a noteworthy humanitarian contribution in his community.”

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