The Wild's woeful penalty kill might have turned a corner Sunday, escaping most of the minutes it spent shorthanded unscathed.
But by giving its PK reps to work out of its slump, the Wild limited its offensive opportunities and continued a cold spell that was hard to miss in a 4-1 letdown against the Canucks at Xcel Energy Center.
"Our penalty kill did a fabulous job, I thought," winger Marcus Foligno said. "But it can tire guys out, and you kind of saw that in the third period. We had some looks, obviously, to theirs but for the most part, the jump wasn't always there."
After registering 43 shots Thursday in Calgary, the Wild was more tepid against the Canucks — boasting just three after one period and 12 after two.
Some of that drop-off can be explained by how much time the Wild spent killing penalties. The team committed eight infractions and snuffed out seven, getting burned just once by Vancouver in the second period.
"Some were dumb, really dumb," coach Bruce Boudreau said of the penalties, one of which was for too many men on the ice. "That's two games in a row guys aren't paying attention on the bench. And we're telling them not to go, and they still go."
Still, the Wild had its fair share of power-play time to try to reboot its offense. But the unit couldn't convert, going 0-for-5 — the 12th time in the past 18 games the Wild's play with the man advantage has come up empty-handed.
"We're a team when we're going well. We get shots on net. We go to the net, like Marcus' goal," said Boudreau, referring to Foligno's crease-crashing finish in the second that counted as his fourth goal in the past four games. "That's how we score. We grind it out. But we don't have enough guys grinding right now."
