It’s hard to ignore what Marian Gaborik, the franchise player of the Minnesota Wild, has meant to his team as the Stanley Cup playoffs approach. The Wild added scoring threats Pavol Demitra and Mark Parrish last summer, but it’s with Gaborik in the lineup that the team is 21-6-4. Minnesota is 15-5-5 since its star wing returned from a groin injury in early January. He has 12 goals in the last 14 games, many of them timely, fueling buzz about the team’s ability to be competitive in the playoffs.

The team concept has always been first and foremost with Wild coach Jacques Lemaire. So, it’s not surprising that he might be a little tired of talking about the success of one player. "We have 22 players, and this is a team,” Lemaire told St. Paul Pioneer Press writer John Shipley recently. “It's not tennis."

Shipley acknowledges Lemaire’s emphasis on team, writing that “anyone who has watched Minnesota play this season can see the Wild have found a synchronous consistency that will make them dangerous when the playoffs start next month.” That’s something the 2002-03 Wild had, the only club in team history to play postseason hockey. In the franchise’s third season, the Wild upended Colorado and Vancouver en route to the Western Conference finals.

Still, there are few players as gifted as Gaborik. It’s hard to ignore his success and how dangerous he and Demitra are on a line together. The Slovakian natives have combined for 22 goals and 43 points in Minnesota’s last 15 games.

Unlike the early years of the franchise, Gaborik isn’t the lone sniper on a confident team that is at its best with the postseason looming. The Wild may be seeded eighth in the Western Conference after Sunday's action, but they are a threat to surprise a first-round opponent. Gaborik gives Wild fans hope that the playoff run will go much longer than that.