The Wild need to win their opening-round playoff series against the St. Louis Blues to make money as an organization this season. That would be playing three sellout home games.
Monday night's game at the Xcel Energy Center, which played to a sellout crowd, was the first home playoff game for Minnesota this season.
An Xcel playoff sellout of 17,954 is worth about a $1.3 million profit for the Wild.
Most NHL teams don't include the playoffs when they budget for the season. But Wild owner Craig Leipold is an optimist, and it's a good guess that he counted on his team getting into the playoffs when he set his budget.