The Minnesota Wild loaded up at the trade deadline and finished second in the Western Conference during the regular season. 

Yet, for the second straight season, the team was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs, this time by the St. Louis Blues in five games.

The Wild have made the playoffs in each of the past five seasons, but have failed to advance past the second round.

"That’s what hurts the most is… what is this, five years in a row?” forward Erik Haula told the Star Tribune after the Wild were eliminated Saturday. “I’m sick of it. We’re all sick of it. We’ll say this or that or whatever, but I’m just so [ticked] off. Like I said, it’s just hard to put it into context right now.”

Forward Zach Parise, who mentioned his thoughts on the playoff format after the Wild fell down 3-0 in the series, said the team expected a better result.

“It’s tough to handle really. None of us expected this. It’s going to be a long offseason for sure. We tried to get our way back into the series but when you’re down 3-nothing in the series you’re really asking a lot, not that we quit, we never quit, we tried, we played hard all the way til the end but, like I said, right now it’s just a disappointing group of players.”

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Silver lining? Had the Wild won their first round series, the conditional fourth-round pick in the Hanzal/White trade would have become a third-round pick. If they made the Western final, the pick would have become a second-rounder.

The Wild traded a 2017 first-round pick and a 2018 second-round pick (along with AHL forward Grayson Downing and a conditional fourth-round pick) to the Arizona Coyotes to acquire forwards Martin Hanzal and Ryan White (along with a fourth-round pick) in February. Hanzal scored one goal in the five game series, while played in only three games, failing to register a point. Both players are set to hit free agency this summer. 

Head coach Bruce Boudreau has reached the conference finals once in nine trips to the post-season with the Wild, Anaheim Ducks and Washington Capitals.

“It's a tough business. It's tough to win,” head coach Bruce Boudreau said. “That’s why there's only a certain amount of teams that have won in the last 20 years. I'm sure Chuck (Fletcher) and management crew will get together and hopefully go through what we had and see what we need and go at it for the future.”

The Wild do not own a pick in either of the first two rounds of June's entry draft.