DENVER - It's hockey, so the Pepsi Center pond was, of course, frozen Sunday night.
But the Wild resembled a team treading water waiting for its stars to come to the rescue. That doesn't bode well for a crucial Northwest Division road swing that began with a damaging 4-2 loss to the division-leading Colorado Avalanche.
With Marian Gaborik and Pavol Demitra still sidelined by groin injuries, the Wild, now three points behind Colorado, began its divisional trek against the NHL's best home team (9-1) and in an arena where it rarely leaves victorious (four wins in 21 regular-season visits).
The Wild left Demitra back in the Twin Cities and has seen a 10-point negative swing in the standings since Demitra was first injured Oct. 21. It now travels to Calgary, where it's won three times in 19 visits.
The Flames are struggling, but the Wild badly needs Gaborik back. He sat out because he wasn't "100 percent."We have to play better than we did tonight if we want to win," coach Jacques Lemaire said. "If Pav would have been with us and Gabby with us, and we played like this, we would not win.
"Our best players were [Aaron] Voros -- that came from Houston. Houston! He worked his butt off, gave everything he had. Mikko [Koivu] is always steady. Butch [Pierre-Marc Bouchard] was better, and Foyzie [Matt Foy] was great. They're our four best players tonight. We can't have that."
The Wild was a step slow at even strength. The rust from its six-day layoff was apparent, especially in the first four minutes when the Wild iced the puck five times.
However, the Wild got power-play goals by Eric Belanger and Bouchard to climb back to within one from a pair of two-goal, second-period deficits.
But the Wild could never get closer as the Avs, behind two goals from star-in-the-making Paul Stastny (taken 40 picks after the Wild took Benoit Pouliot in the 2005 draft) and one each from Ryan Smyth and Wojtek Wolski, held on in the third period.
For the second consecutive game at Colorado, former Avalanche Stanley Cup winner Martin Skoula struggled.
The defenseman was partly responsible for Smyth's power-play goal (he was beaten along the boards, then got twisted like a pretzel in front) and Stastny's second goal (fooled badly by a stellar move from Stastny after a two-on-one became a harmless-looking two-on-two).
Lemaire scrambled his defense pairs to find a remedy. Didn't work. Finally, a third-period Skoula gaffe that led to a Koivu penalty was Skoula's final shift. He was benched the final 11 minutes.
"He's been really good against other teams," Lemaire said. "It's only here that he's having a problem, but we're going to solve that. We don't know how, but we're going to solve it."
Told of Lemaire's comments, Skoula said, "That's his opinion, that's his opinion." Asked if he thought he struggled, Skoula said, "Nope," although he conceded on the Stastny goal, "I might have played it a little bit differently. I would like to maybe take it back, but it's done."
Michael Russo • mrusso@startribune.com
wild/nhl
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