Wild throttled by Stars 8-3; Coach Dean Evason says, 'We were awful'

What plagued the Wild early in the season is still pestering them 15 games in, an 8-3 dismantling by the Stars on Sunday at Xcel Energy Center in a Central Division mismatch, a nutshell of all that's gone wrong.

After another ghastly start, the Wild penalty kill gave up a franchise-record five goals to a Dallas power play that was sleepy until this awakening.

"We were awful," coach Dean Evason said.

But that wasn't the only leak.

The so-so power play also blew most of its chances while getting scored on twice, a reminder that even though the offense isn't blameless, the Wild's woes keep circling back to defense.

And the longer the problems persist, the more obvious the question hanging over the Wild becomes: Are these resolvable issues or the team's identity?

"If you're honest with yourself and accountable, which most athletes are, you look in the mirror and go, 'It's not good enough,' " Evason said. "So, hopefully, we all do that."

If there is a silver lining, perhaps it's that what the Wild (5-8-2) need to fix should be very familiar to them, especially after every eyesore was accounted for in their latest letdown.

Brandon Duhaime was penalized 50 seconds after the opening faceoff, and Dallas capitalized just seven seconds later when Joe Pavelski backhanded in a rebound.

This deficit doubled at 9:49 when Marcus Johansson's pass sailed behind Vinni Lettieri and bounced off the boards before Radek Faksa scooped up the carom and deposited the turnover behind Wild goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.

Duhaime delivered a response goal at 10:38 when he buried a Dallas giveaway, and so did Lettieri with 48 seconds left in the first after Matt Duchene scored at 10:52 despite being surrounded by Wild players.

But the Wild were still chasing; this was the ninth time they exited the first trailing. Overall, the Wild have been tagged for a league-worst 25 goals in the first period.

"It's just ugly," Marcus Foligno said. "It's just a negative way to start a game."

That one-goal gap between the Wild and Stars was temporary because of another of the Wild's weaknesses: the performance of their penalty kill and power play.

Dallas scored its next four goals on the power play, including two during a five-minute advantage after Duhaime was assessed a five-minute major and game misconduct for boarding Thomas Harley late in the second period.

Wyatt Johnston (2:34) and Evgenii Dadonov (12:11) converted in the second period before a Jason Robertson blitz at 1:02 and 3:09 of the third; Fleury had 29 saves, while Lakeville's Jake Oettinger totaled 23.

"A lot of them are rebound goals that they're just finding and hungrier than we are to get it out of there," Evason said. "You're standing beside someone and he outwills you to put it in the net. It's hard to go, 'Geez, you're out of position.' You're not. You're just outbattled. We need more from a lot of guys."

Johnston finished the rout with 2:03 to go with Dallas' second shorthanded goal, which tied the Wild's record for most allowed in a game. As for the eight goals total, that matched the franchise record for a home game, and the 63 goals the Wild have surrendered this season is the most in the NHL.

The 5-for-8 barrage by the Stars' power play was reminiscent of how they eliminated the Wild from the playoffs last season, with Dallas racking up nine power-play goals compared to four by the Wild.

But the Stars' power play hadn't been as potent this season until this game. Dallas' five goals were one more than it'd tallied in all its previous games.

"Maybe this is what we needed, a team that took a bunch of stupid penalties so we could work on it," Stars coach Pete DeBoer said.

As for the Wild, their power play converted just once in five chances, a shot from Mats Zuccarello with 4:01 left in the second period for a 17.5% efficiency this season — not as bad as the penalty kill's last-place 63.5% but still ho-hum production.

"We get paid a lot of money to coach, to play, that you gotta get the job done," said Evason, who mentioned the team needs more from its top players. "You get paid to score goals, score goals, and I'm talking the whole roster, the lowest-paid guy to the highest-paid guy."

Creating offense, however, was a challenge considering how careless the Wild were with the puck.

"I can see if a guy steals it off you," Evason said. "But when you do a spin-o-rama and flip it through the neutral zone or our D-zone, that's on you. That's not on the Dallas Stars forcing us to do that."

At one point, Kirill Kaprizov's errant backhand was seized by Dallas and culminated in a goal-saving shot block in the crease by Ryan Hartman.

Twice in the second period Fleury stopped breakaways and on another in the third, the goalie came out of his net and slid into Roope Hintz; Fleury was penalized for tripping.

"The bench is like, 'Stop turning it over. Stop turning it over,'" Evason said. "Then the guy who's saying, 'Stop turning it over' goes out and turns it over. It's stuff like that that's frustrating for us."

This blowout sends the Wild to Sweden for a pair of games in the NHL Global Series on a three-game losing streak.

In a week, they'll know whether they brought their struggles with them.

"No matter where you're going, if it was Sweden or another city, it's the same thing," captain Jared Spurgeon said. "We gotta work our way out of it. No one is feeling sorry for us here.

"It's a long season and this group in here as got to be the ones that come together and get us out of it."