Idle Wild has 4 long days to 'get over it'

The longest week of the Wild's season began Sunday.

Saturday night, the Wild jumped out to a three-goal lead before collapsing to the Ottawa Senators. The easiest, healthiest thing to do after such a devastating loss would have been to strap on the skates again and play another game immediately.

Instead, the Wild, which tripped to 10th in the West, is idle until Thursday. That means four long days of thinking and hearing about the mother of all meltdowns.

"It's probably the worst timing ever having four days off," center Eric Belanger said. "You'll see teams playing games and winning and getting points. It's going to be key to come to work [today] with a positive attitude. It's crunch time. We have nothing else. We know what we did and we have to make sure it never happens again."

The cleansing began Sunday when a scheduled day off was scrapped for a lecture from Doug Risebrough. But the general manager didn't tear paint off the walls.

Instead, with every player sitting in their stalls, Risebrough kept the meeting positive with the sole objective being, "Putting this behind you."

"They've got to get together and get over it," Risebrough said. "I would have worried if we hadn't talked to them. They were down. They were disappointed, but you've got to get through it, you've got to get by that. You've got to get over it and get moving on."

Saturday night, the Wild miscalculated how well it played in the first period because it was ahead 3-0. The reality is the last five minutes of the first, the Wild's unraveling began.

The Wild's sloppy play filtered into the second, and Senators coach Cory Clouston made fine adjustments starting with breaking up the Dany Heatley-Jason Spezza-Daniel Alfredsson line because it couldn't generate anything against Belanger, Stephane Veilleux and Cal Clutterbuck.

The momentum turned, and it was almost impossible to seize control back.

"We've had a problem through the year where we lose our way a bit," captain Andrew Brunette said. "We don't sense trouble coming and when we finally do, it's already past the point of reaction. When we see it, we have to realize it and be professional enough to end it.

"Good teams do. They sense it, they end it and they play on."

The problem is that the Wild continues to display fragility. It's wildly inconsistent, and the players gain and lose confidence seemingly by the hour.

"For us, confidence is a big thing. Regaining it and losing it -- we do that very easy," Brunette said. "It slips for some reason. We have to try to find a way to keep that confidence high, and that's such a hard thing to do. I find with this team, it's especially hard."

With the March 4 trade deadline approaching, Risebrough's not about to overhaul the personnel. He said, "You've got to keep things in perspective. We're competing in a very, very difficult conference."

He said there are only "four or five good teams in the league," and "the rest of us are all the same."

With most teams essentially still in the playoff race, there's only two or three "sellers." Things are made more complex by the fact that half the league is within $1.5 million of the salary-cap ceiling.

"I'd say we're all switchers now," Risebrough said. "There's not a lot people can do. ... You're not parachuting something in. You're going to give to get. You're not going to add, add, add. It's impossible."

Asked if that means he's not going to magically add a goal scorer, Risebrough said, smiling, "He's recovering," referring to Marian Gaborik, recouping from hip surgery. "I still look at him as being in the lineup."

Gaborik, who's not expected back until three weeks into March at the earliest, is skating on his own. Risebrough said Gaborik must pass a "big test, a big physical," March 3 to ramp up his training. It should be noted that March 3 is conveniently one day before the trade deadline.

Gaborik or no Gaborik, the Wild finds itself in a big hole.

Late next week, the Wild begins a stretch of 14 of 17 on the road. That could be a torturous journey for a team that's shown no ability to win more than two regulation games in a row since the first three games of the season.

"I don't think anything's changed from two weeks ago," Brunette said. "We're pretty well in the same mess we were then. The games are slipping away here. I think we realize the importance of every game."

Still, Belanger added, "If you look at the teams from 5 to 15 [in the West], I don't think there's a team that's better than us. We have to believe that."