The Wild posted the Stinker of the Year. Is this a turning point?

In their 29th game, almost halfway through December, the Wild had their first flop of the season.

They were schooled 7-1 by Edmonton on Thursday at Xcel Energy Center in their ugliest performance yet, a mismatch in precision, energy and manpower: The Oilers had them and the Wild didn’t.

“An uncharacteristic night for us,” coach John Hynes said. “I’m not going to overthink it.”

As rare as this outcome was, the Wild are now in their wheelhouse.

Rebounding, from losses and injuries, has become their trademark. They have yet to drop two in a row in regulation, and they are undefeated after regulation losses; that’s why they’re near the top of the league.

“You got to take it with a grain of salt, right?” defenseman Brock Faber said. “It’s one of those things where you hate when those nights happen, and you want to avoid those nights. But now, it’s accepting and learning from it and still staying confident in our game and who we are as a team.

“We’re playing good hockey. We’re battling. We have a chance every night.”

But the adversity the Wild face is getting more challenging.

Jake Middleton is the latest to get hurt, the defenseman leaving with an upper-body injury after blocking an Evan Bouchard shot on his first shift, and Middleton’s exit set the tone for the rest of the night since the Wild struggled to contain superstar Leon Draisaitl, who had a hand in four goals.

“Sometimes it’s just bad luck and where you get hit and how you get hit,” President of Hockey Operations Bill Guerin said. “It’s unfortunate.”

Middleton is an NHL-best plus-22, has a team-high 76 shot blocks and leads the Wild defense in goals with five to go along with eight assists. He was placed on long-term injured reserve on Friday, meaning he’ll be sidelined for at least for 10 games and 24 days. Guerin said Middleton doesn’t have a season-long injury, “but it’ll be significant time.” The team is calling him week-to-week.

“Midds is a big part of shutting down guys, playing big down there, just holding on to pucks and just kind of making a lot of lines get one-and-dones in our zone,” alternate captain Marcus Foligno said. “So, yeah, it’s tough. Tough bounce when he gets injured like that.”

The Wild addressed Middleton’s absence by claiming Travis Dermott off waivers from Edmonton.

Dermott, 27, appeared in 10 games with the Oilers but had been a healthy scratch lately and last played Nov. 19. The 6-foot, 200-pound left-shot defenseman also had stints with Arizona, Vancouver and Toronto during his 339-game, eight-season NHL career after being a second-round draft pick by the Maple Leafs in 2015. Team brass was working on a work visa for Dermott and to get him back to St. Paul after he left with the Oilers, and Guerin thought Dermott would be in the lineup on Saturday afternoon vs. Philadelphia.

“He brings good energy,” Guerin said. “He can skate well. He can move pucks. We really like him. [Assistant] Jason King had him for a short time [with the Canucks]. I think he’s going to adapt well to the way we play.”

Defenseman Jonas Brodin, shutdown center Joel Eriksson Ek and playmaker Mats Zuccarello are also injured, but Brodin and Zuccarello skated again on Friday and are close to returning; whether or not they’re ready to face the Flyers is unclear. Eriksson Ek is still week-to-week.

“It’s next man up like we’ve been doing all along,” captain Jared Spurgeon said.

Health, though, isn’t all that’s ailing the Wild.

So is their much-maligned penalty kill, which is third-to-last in the NHL at 70.4%.

This is a familiar problem — the Wild were also 30th last season — and although the PK has been mostly camouflaged by the team’s success, problems have been percolating; the Wild almost lost to Utah on Tuesday after giving up two power-play goals in the third period before rallying for a 5-4 shootout victory, and Los Angeles’ game-winning goal in its 4-1 victory last Saturday came with the man advantage.

Edmonton opened the scoring while the Wild were in the penalty box, and the Oilers’ fourth goal — after they capitalized shorthanded — was also on the power play to begin the rout.

Not enough pressure on 50-50 pucks and too few blue-line stands on entries are plaguing the Wild, according to Hynes, who also has an issue with the penalties the Wild are taking — tripping and hooking infractions that are indicative of them not skating and not checking with their feet.

“It’s just in a rut,” Foligno said. “Yeah, it’s got to be better.”

Maybe a shellacking like the one the Wild just received will be a line in the sand for the PK and the entire team.

They haven’t been out of sync much: their first game against the Flyers, the two defeats by the Kings, and their two regulation losses to the Jets and Stars. But getting clobbered by the Oilers takes the cake.

“A little bit of humble pie,” Foligno said.

If the Wild bounce back again, the sting from this stinker will fade in a hurry.

And if they don’t, they’ll need to do more to prove what happened against Edmonton isn’t cause for concern.

“Over the course of 82 games, you’re going to have a few of these,” Hynes said. “Now it’s all about what can we do to make sure we get better. We know what happened [Thursday]. I got no issues with it. It happened. Now we got to make sure that we fix it.

“We get re-energized, and we get ready for the weekend. That to me is what the focus is.”

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Flyers update: Philadelphia is one of only five teams to defeat the Wild in regulation, and that 7-5 victory for the Flyers on Oct. 26 was a turning point for them. The victory ended a six-game slide, and they’ve been competitive ever since. Philadelphia hasn’t lost more than two in a row in regulation, and they’ve had two five-game point streaks. Currently, the Flyers are on a two-game winning streak after LW Scott Laughton scored all of their goals in a 4-1 victory over the Red Wings on Thursday. Philadelphia has Minnesotans RW Bobby Brink (Minnetonka), C Noah Cates (Stillwater), D Erik Johnson (Bloomington), C Ryan Poehling (Lakeville) and D Nick Seeler (Eden Prairie) on its roster.

Injuries: Wild D Jonas Brodin (upper body) and RW Mats Zuccarello (lower body) are getting closer to a return. C Joel Eriksson Ek (lower body) and D Jake Middleton (upper body) are out. Flyers LW Nicolas Deslauriers (upper body) is out.