Tired legs are Wild's undoing in D.C. defeat

WASHINGTON - For the first 10 minutes Friday night, the Wild looked like a BMW whizzing 100 miles per hour up the Autobahn.

But slowly but surely, as if somebody was siphoning the gas tank, the Wild turned into a broken-down jalopy trying to climb a treacherous hill.

Fatigue predictably set in after the Wild played the night before in Tampa and arrived in the nation's capital after 3 a.m. A 2-1 third-period deficit felt like 5-1, and the Wild ultimately succumbed 3-1 at Verizon Center.

"But I think we battled hard," said Cal Clutterbuck, who scored the Wild's goal before the Capitals rallied for three. "The first 10 minutes of the game, we were carrying the play to them, and that's when we were the freshest. It gives you an indication that if we had been fresh the whole night, it might have been a different story."

Thursday, the Wild, 4-2-1 in its past seven, moved from 15th to 14th in the West for the first time since Oct. 8. That didn't even last 24 hours. The Wild's back in the West cellar.

Even without injured superstar Alex Ovechkin, the Eastern Conference-leading Capitals (4-1 without Ovechkin) are arguably the best, most-balanced team the Wild has faced. There's a reason they haven't lost at home in regulation since Oct. 8.

They've got immense skill up front, loads of grit and great defensemen, and late in the first period and throughout the second, the Capitals came in waves.

On one first-period power play, the Capitals peppered Wild goalie Josh Harding, making his first start since Oct. 16, with nine shots. Harding held firm, though, on the way to 38 saves.

"He was tremendous," coach Todd Richards said.

But the Wild couldn't turn the momentum. After the Wild built a 7-1 shots advantage, the Capitals got off 30 of the next 39 by the end of the second period.

"They started to feel comfortable with the puck in our zone and they started doing their cycling, dipsy-doodling style of play," Clutterbuck said. "We had to defend a lot of the time."

After Clutterbuck's goal early in the second, Capitals defenseman Mike Green, who scored 18 power-play goals last season, scored his first power-play goal this season by one-timing Tomas Fleischmann's pass from the right circle through Harding's legs.

The Wild, behind Harding's performance, survived the rest of the one-sided period. But early in the third, the Capitals forced the Wild's fourth line into a mistake and defenseman Brian Pothier, the trailer, unloaded the eventual winning goal.

"They played last night, so we knew that if we could hang on for the first 10 minutes that it'd start to show," Pothier said. "We wore them out."

The Wild looked belly-up until Richards put Owen Nolan, James Sheppard and Martin Havlat together for a shift midway thrugh the third. The players seemed to energize the team because Minnesota had numerous chances to tie the score before Brooks Laich's empty-netter came after the linesman bizarrely waved off an icing right before Nick Schultz touched up.

"When you know you're playing in a building against a really tough team and ... know fatigue is eventually going to set in, you'd like [to] get one early or possibly get up by two," Richards said.

That's the problem with the Wild. It's playing Richards' up-tempo system better, but without bona fide finishers, it doesn't result in much.

The Wild flubbed numerous odd-man rushes and prime chances early in the first and late in the third.

"Our execution's got to be better. We put ourselves in opportunities to make plays. Well, we've got to make plays," veteran Andrew Brunette said.