As Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau said after Anaheim's 3-2 win tonight at the Honda Center, the Wild "vastly outplayed" the Ducks in the final two periods "but we just hung on."

Unfortunately for Minnesota, it spotted the Ducks, who are off to their best start in club history (15-3-1), a 3-0 lead. It wasn't like the game here Feb. 1 when the Wild was literally pinned in its zone for pretty much 55 minutes.

Tonight, the Wild paid for not being crisp with the puck in the first period. Turnovers, being caught in between, and Ryan Getzlaf and Teemu Selanne gave Anaheim a 2-0 lead.

But the Wild dominated the second. Jonas Hiller kept the Wild, 6-3-1 in its past 10, at bay despite some bigtime chances. Then a puck deflected off Ryan Suter's skate and into the crease under Darcy Kuemper, and Matt Beleskey shuffleboarded (made-up verb) it home for the eventual winner.

Kyle Brodziak scored 29 seconds into the third and Devin Setoguchi followed, but the Wild could never get the equalizer despite a late power play against a team that's won eight in a row at home.

The Wild controlled the last 10 minutes of the game after assistant coach Rick Wilson shuffled the D pairs, some of which weren't sharp -- like for a rarity, Suter-Jonas Brodin. Jared Spurgeon, who had a strong game and was the only plus Wild player in 27:47 of ice time, played with Suter and Brodin with Nate Prosser, and momentum came.

No momentum came from a late power play. Brodziak was on the No. 1 unit, and that stemmed from the change in Phoenix where they threw him out there and Spurgeon scored the eventual winner. They're doing it for the net-front presence, but I still would like to see more flash on the power play, maybe more of a shooter, like I don't know, AHL power-play stud Jason Zucker!

Judging from the tweets, fans are clamoring, too. I understand that Yeo is limiting his ice time at 5-on-5. All coaches do this with rookies who may not be playing the system to a T. But I think it's time the kid gets some power-play time. Yeo said last week he was hesitant because the veterans deserve first shot. But the power play ranks 25th in the NHL and the Wild doesn't score enough 5-on-5 to continually be wasting must-score power plays.

But other than the first period, I liked the Wild's game tonight. The Wild was all over a terrific Anaheim team. The effort was outstanding. It just paid for some careless plays with the puck in the first.

Couple things: The Wild is spending the night here in Anaheim, flying home Saturday and not practicing. So there may be no blog if no news.

The temperature for Sunday's game against Edmonton may have been dialed down. Taylor Hall, who injured Cal Clutterbuck in Edmonton last week, left tonight's game at St. Louis with a reported hamstring injury.

So there's a chance Hall and Clutterbuck won't play at the X on Sunday, which also may kill the story I've been working on!

Clutterbuck definitely won't play. Yeo doesn't have an update yet as to how he's feeling, but even if Clutterbuck is perfectly healthy, he hasn't practiced or been on the ice with the team in eight days. So, he's not playing Sunday.

Kent Youngblood is covering the game Sunday, by the way, although I'm sure I'll still be there tweeting up a storm.

I'm off to Chicago on Monday, but on Monday before my flight, I will be filling in for Paul Allen on KFAN from 9-noon. I'm sure there will be plenty of hockey guests.

Take care.