The Wild lost 3-1 to the Colorado Avalanche for its third consecutive loss and fourth in six games.
After the game, the Wild and Avs raced to the airport to see who could take off first for Denver. If the race results went like tonight's game, the Avs got a head start by a few miles, the Wild finally decided to push on the gas, nearly caught up and still ended up seeing Colorado's taillights from the tarmac.
In fact, that's been the way it's gone for the Wild for six games now.
The Wild's a shell of its former self – the team that got off to a 7-0-1 start this month and less than two weeks ago was 13-4-4. Now it's 15-8-4 and sitting in eighth in the West.
After the game, the quotes were honest, starting with Zach Parise, who angrily sat in his locker tonight after returning from a foot injury that was supposed to keep him out for two to three weeks. Instead he missed one. Parise, Mikko Koivu and Jason Pominville were minus-2 (includes empty-netter) with four shots and were part of a No. 1 power-play unit that managed one shot on a major tonight down 1-0.
"We played a soft hockey game," Parise said, bristling. "We cheat. We turn the puck over … We turn away from everybody. We make it pretty easy for them, and that slows us down. We can't get any speed generated because we keep backchecking."
Dany Heatley, who scored his fourth goal in the past six games, agreed, saying, "I think it's crept in a little bit. We've had some nights where we haven't been as hard on the puck and as honest as a team as other nights and our goalies have bailed us out. Eventually that's going to catch up to you."
The Wild has been scored on first in six straight games, has given up three straight 2-0 deficits and has been outshot 73-32 in the past six first periods.