Chicago -

Here's why the Wild lost:

They missed on a handful of great scoring chances near the net. Jason Pominville continues to shoot wide. Jonas Brodin, the best of the Wild's young players last year, has regressed. And the Blackhawks are the kind of team that will punish mistakes when you make as many as the Wild did on Friday night in a 5-2 loss to Chicago at United Center.

I wrote my column on goalie Ilya Bryzgalov's performance, and the Wild's desperation at the position. That will be in the Saturday paper and online.

The money quote of the night came from Wild coach Mike Yeo: ``I thought we had a handful of guys who were below-average at best."

Unless Yeo was fibbing when he said that Josh Harding is a long shot to play in this series, the Wild will have to rally around Bryzgalov, but it's going to be tough to limit quality shots against the Blackhawks. The Wild enjoyed a 32-22 advantage in shots.

My theory is that when your team wins, you can call that an advantage. When you lose, those shots are nothing but missed opportunities.

Zach Parise said this game felt a little like the first game of the Colorado series, and he's right. The Wild played a talented opponent pretty evenly and lost.

I'd point out that the common denominator was Bryzgalov playing less than stellar between the pipes, but that's just me.

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Clayton Stoner played very well