Postgame: Wild loses special teams battle and now find itself in big hole

John Torchetti opened the film he showed the team this morning with clips of Nate Prosser sacrificing his body and blocking shots during Monday's Game 3 victory over the Dallas Stars.

Oh, the irony.

A huge theme in Torchetti's press conference after tonight's 3-2 Game 4 loss to the Stars was bemoaning the fact that the Wild didn't commit to getting into Ales Hemsky's shooting lane during the first of the Stars' 2 for 2 power plays.

The guilty party was veteran Ryan Suter, who wasn't close to the lane and then seemed to sidestep it with his stick rather than his body.

Hemsky then blew it through a screen as Devan Dubnyk's eyes were taken away by Colton Sceviour.

"We have to do a better job in that lane," Torchetti said. "That right lane has to be blocked, especially when it's a righty on the off-side. We have to get in front of that, and block that shot."

Torchetti returned to that play two questions later, saying, "We have to get that kill done, but we have to block that shot. That's the part for me I want to make sure we understand. That's twice we've given up that play, and we have to get in that lane, and we have to commit to doing the job there."

The Wild came out with a solid first period. It was physical, had energy and generated a few scoring chances during a pretty even period. The Stars had the better of the chances and I thought the Wild could have done a better job pressuring Antti Niemi better. Most the shots were from the outside.

The second was a roller coaster of emotions.

Suter made a good play to force Jamie Benn into a turnover and Jared Spurgeon responded with a one-touch outlet to Jason Pominville. Pominville fed Nino Niederreiter, who drove the zone, fed Erik Haula and that resulted in Niederreiter taking Haula's rebound and shooting it in off Pominville's lower leg. It was Pominville's third goal of the series.

But Matt Dumba, who had yet another tough, tough game, took a delay of game penalty and with seven seconds left in a solid kill, Hemsky scored after Suter didn't get in the shooting lane.

Charlie Coyle then gave the Wild its one-goal lead back 63 seconds later by scoring an awesome goal with Alex Goligoski on his back after Coyle forced Goligoski into a giveaway.

The Stars, the league's fifth-best power play in the regular season, was 2 for 2 on the power play against the regular season's 27th-ranked penalty kill. The PK was 12 for 13 in the series through Game 3.

Mikael Granlund and Justin Fontaine were on for both the goals. In the hindsight's 20-20 game, remember, veteran penalty killers Jarret Stoll and Ryan Carter were scratched for Zac Dalpe and Kurtis Gabriel.

Then, late in the period, Haula drew a Benn penalty. But the Wild couldn't score on the ensuing power play and 14 seconds after it expired, Jason Spezza scored the go-ahead goal and eventual winner when he gained a step on Pominville and a Jason Demers pass ricocheted in off his skidding skate.

That came after a poorly-placed dump-in by Dumba.

"We had the crowd into it, the momentum was on our side and then we seemed to take the penalty," Suter said. "We had been doing such a good job killing it, so it was very disappointing to let them in."

I thought the Wild's forwards played a solid game. The Niederreiter-Haula-Pominville line combined for 10 shots, six by Haula. Coyle was a threat a lot.

The defensemen were erratic. I mentioned Dumba. Same with Marco Scandella. Suter had six shots either blocked or missed the target.

Torchetti "liked our game. We just have to go and win a game in their building; that's the bottom-line. I liked our game as a team; I liked our work ethic. A minute, 24, you have a chance to tie the game up. I told the players straight up, we have to execute there, and be ready for that, and just get it done. That's the bottom-line. They got it done on their power play, we didn't tonight, and we have to make sure that we take their strengths away. That's their strength as a team — their power play — and it should have been probably a 2-1 game, a 2-2 game, and we have to score."

On Friday's game, Torchetti said, "I'm looking forward to seeing who is going to step up. That's something that, when you're a coach, you want to see that character. Everyone always has character when you win, but your real character is revealed when you're losing. That's the bottom-line for me."

Some other quotes:

Coyle: "I think everyone thinks we can [come back in the series]. We just have to stay positive and focus on the next game, that's all. We don't look at the big picture, just the task at hand. That's the next one in that building."

Pominville: "It's not the way we would have wrote it up, but we've put ourselves in a tough spot. We have dug ourselves out of tough situation all year, so we've got to do it again. We have the opportunity to do something special and something that doesn't happen that often."

Stars coach Lindy Ruff:

The Wild outshot Dallas 14-2 in the third, but Ruff said, "We stayed inside. We've done a good job this year when we have the lead to make sure we stay away from the high quality. A lot of times, you'll see teams where the shots will go up against but you just can't quite get the quality because you don't leave the middle of the ice very often."

On Dallas' 2 power plays: "I thought we shot the puck. They had been really good, they took some of our seams away, they took their goal plays away. We went back to just trying to shoot the puck, get a net-front presence, I think that's the biggest difference. We got one off a broken play. They really weren't really in a killing formation and on the second one, one of our players was right on top of the goaltender and took his eyes away. It was a real good shot by Hemsky."