Like the players, Andrew Brunette is frustrated.
One of the most popular players in Wild history, "Bruno" is the assistant coach in charge of the Wild power play. In fact, he went from being one of Mike Yeo's eyes in the sky last season to being on the bench this season so he could make real-time, hands-on adjustments to the power play.
The rare maneuver of having a third assistant on the bench was due to a middle-of-the-pack power play deemed by Yeo as not good enough. But if the Wild ranked 16th again this season, it would undoubtedly sit higher than ninth place in the Western Conference standings.
After 23 games, the Wild's power play ranks 29th in the NHL, scoring seven times on 73 chances for a 9.4 percent success rate. On the road, the Wild's power play has scored once on 42 chances (2.4 percent).
"I've scratched my head and think a lot about it," Brunette said. "To me, you just want to go to bed feeling you've prepared your guys as much as you possibly can. If you can do that, I think you sleep a little better. But there are nights, I admit, where I think maybe I haven't done enough. It's frustrating."
Brunette scored 114 power-play goals in his career. He knows a thing or two about the power play and has been through great ones, bad ones, hot stretches and bad stretches.
He says the problems on the ice aren't personnel or systematic, but more so because of frustration has infiltrated the players.
Zach Parise, who scored his first power-play goal Saturday against St. Louis after finishing fourth in the NHL last season with 14, said as such after a recent loss at Tampa Bay. He said it was becoming "repetitive" where players were "sitting around and waiting for someone else to do something. We don't support each other very well. When you're scoring, you do that stuff naturally. When you're not, we stand around, we look at each other, we don't support each other, we don't retrieve pucks."
