28 January 2024
The Wild dressing room wasn’t empty after Saturday night’s 3-2 loss to Anaheim, but the two players who showed up for the post mortem were dramatically outnumbered by equipment managers and reporters.
It was hard for them to be positive, not just about a loss in a must-win game against a team that started the night with just 34 points, but about what awaits the team following a 10-day break that started on Sunday.
Buried in the Western Conference standings for most of the season, the Wild’s spirits have been buoyed by the fact that they have, in fact, played better since John Hynes became the head coach on Nov. 28.
The Wild were 5-10-2 and riding a seven-game winning streak when general manager Bill Guerin replaced Dean Evason with Hynes, head coach in New Jersey and Nashville before becoming the Wild’s seventh head coach. Since then, they’re at least above .500 — 16-13-1.
Yet they enter this break, a combination of the Wild’s bye week and the All-Star Game break, with a 21-23-5 record and five points out of the last wild card playoff spot with five teams ahead of them — with 33 regular-season games left.
It’s a puzzle for members of a team that has remained essentially the same since finishing last season with 46 wins and 103 points, the fourth-best regular-season finish in franchise history.
Yet this team has never looked the same.
“Very weird,” goaltender Filip Gustavsson said after Saturday’s game “Like, we almost have the same personnel within the team, and it’s in there. It’s like it’s locked behind the safe or something. We just have forgotten about the combination right now. Some days it’s there, we play awesome, we play great. And some days it’s just nonexistent, and we can’t have those roller coaster nights.”
The Wild have negotiated a large handful of injuries to key contributors such as Gustavsson, Mats Zuccarello, Kirill Kaprizov, Jonas Brodin and Jared Spurgeon. Yet they came out of the gates hard after Hynes was hired, going 11-3-0 in their first 14 games, with some of those players missing. Since then, it’s been lost opportunity after lost opportunity.
The Wild haven’t beaten a conference rival since consecutive wins over Seattle, Calgary and Vancouver Dec. 10-16. Since then, they’re 0-8 against the West, seven of them against teams ahead of them in the standings.
Ahead of Thursday’s game against Nashville at Xcel Energy Center, the Wild were four points behind the Predators for the West’s last wild card spot, and took a 1-0 lead into the third period before giving up three unanswered goals in a 3-2 loss.
Saturday was a chance for them to bounce back — earn two points, complete a three-game homestand with 4 of 6 points and go into the break feeling good — against one of the three worst teams in the NHL. The Wild went into the third period leading 2-1, but the Ducks scored two unanswered goals and won 3-2.
Hynes pointed to a failure to follow the plan in the defensive zone as the primary culprit.
“When you’re in a 2-1 game, that’s where your details matter,” he said.
“You’ve gotta be able to win games 2-1, too. Certainly, would we like to get the third goal and extend the lead, for sure; we were working towards that. But when it doesn’t happen, and then you’re in critical areas where you’re called upon to defend the right way and we don’t — that’s the lesson out of the last two games.”
Asked late Saturday what needs to change for this team when it returns to play the Blackhawks in Chicago on Feb. 7, veteran winger Mats Zuccarello was at something of a loss but generally echoed the coaches’ sentiments.
“I wish I had a really good answer for what we need, but I think the easiest way to put it right now is you feel like you have a play, and then you give up a goal, another one, a breakaway,” Zuccarello said. “We’ve gotta play smarter. We’ve got to keep the puck out of the net first, and then the transition (to offense) is gonna come.”
The Wild have other issues now, as well. With the hole they’re in, every win feels like a new lease on life, and every loss feels fatal.
“You get those nice feelings in your body, everyone feels good, everyone plays good,” Gustavsson said. “And then you have those terrible games and everything’s down the drain again, and it’s mentally tough to do that.”
Bottom line: If the Wild want to make the postseason for the fourth straight season — an uphill climb at best — they need to start beating the teams ahead of them in the conference standings. They need to earn the points when they’re in front of them, starting against the Blackhawks on Feb. 7.
“If you wait long enough,” Zuccarello said, “you’re out.”
Briefly
The Wild on Sunday reassigned forward Jake Lucchini and goaltender Jesper Wallstedt to AHL Iowa.