Lost opportunities doom Wild in loss at San Jose

SAN JOSE, CALIF. – Santa Cruz and Napa got pummeled, but the Bay Area "Storm of the Century" that affected San Jose was basically … Seattle every day of the year.

Despite all the scary weather reports of hurricane-force winds and iPhone interruptions of flash flood warnings, the real gusts felt in Silicon Valley on Thursday were that of the Wild passing up shots on odd-man rushes.

Four times the Wild failed to even register one on 2-on-1s, and that proved costly during a 2-1 loss to the Sharks at SAP Center.

"That's the story of the game to me," Wild coach Mike Yeo said. "You get one or two 2-on-1s, you're thrilled. You get four 2-on-1s and don't get shots on them, it's tough to generate those type of opportunities, especially on the road. You've got to capitalize."

Added defenseman Jared Spurgeon: "We had so many chances to bury them, myself included. It's disappointing."

Former Wild defenseman Brent Burns, the NHL's blue-line leader with nine goals, and Joe Pavelski scored for the Sharks. Defenseman Christian Folin's first NHL goal was the Wild's lone score on the night.

The Wild, which had won four of its previous five road games, fell to 2-12-2 in its past 16 games in San Jose.

Darcy Kuemper, who had given up 14 goals in his past four starts, made a number of big saves to keep the Wild in a scoreless game until late in the second period.

Similarly, former University of Minnesota Duluth and South St. Paul goalie Alex Stalock played his first career game against his hometown Wild. In fact, Stalock became only the second Minnesota native to face the Wild in goal (Damian Rhodes did it twice in 2001).

Stalock wasn't tested often, but he did his job to help his team to a 1-0 lead after two.

Besides 14 saves through 40 minutes, Stalock demonstrated how he's always willing to stray far from his net. With the Sharks on a power play after Nate Prosser took an interference penalty on Tommy Wingels, a dead-tired Erik Haula backhanded a soft clear in the Sharks end.

But Stalock skated nearly to the blue line to stop the puck and send it back on transition. Haula was the only Wild penalty killer to make it to the bench. Kyle Brodziak, Ryan Suter and Spurgeon were trapped and their long 55-second shifts ended with Burns firing a deflected shot past a gassed Brodziak.

The Wild tied the score just 63 seconds into the third period on Folin's first career goal. He picked off Wingels' lazy clear and let a bomb fly past Jason Zucker's screen.

"It's very exciting to score a goal," Folin said. "I mean, I'm not really a goal scorer."

But the Wild's new life was killed 45 seconds later when Thomas Vanek lost Joe Pavelski and Joe Thornton sent him a seeing-eye pass for a dead-on, open-net dagger.

"To get the momentum and give it right back stinks," Spurgeon said.

Suter drew a power play soon after, but for the second power play of the game, the Wild and its 1-for-44 road power play didn't come close to registering a shot.

The Wild was also maddeningly inefficient on four 2-on-1s in the first two periods. The Wild didn't get a shot on any of them.

Minutes into the game, Zach Parise flubbed a Mikael Granlund pass with virtually the entire net staring him in the face. Later, Brodziak dinged the crossbar on a shorthanded rush. After that, Granlund led Vanek on an odd-man rush, but they fouled each other up with a miscommunication (or actually no communication when Granlund expected Vanek to go, and he crossed to his right).

In the second period, Parise set Spurgeon up on a 2-on-1. Despite a point-blank chance, Spurgeon seemed stunned by an aggressive Stalock and his pass back for Parise was broken up by Logan Couture.

Earlier in the period, Couture's extended reach denied Vanek of a wraparound goal.