He hasn't scored a goal, and a lot are being scored against when he's on the ice. Plus, the Wild has been in a tailspin since he came back to the lineup.
Sixteen games after returning from a concussion, Marek Zidlicky was finally yanked from the lineup Saturday -- a clear message the Wild can no longer afford to play the veteran defenseman if his game is going to be this erratic.
"I don't expect him to be happy. It's always an embarrassing thing to be a healthy scratch. It's a big blow to the ego," coach Mike Yeo said before the Wild's game against Dallas. "But we're doing it because we believe there's a lot more there. He can help our team an awful lot if he's playing his game the best that he can.
"We've tried a lot of things, so we have to try this."
Zidlicky, 34, an offensive defenseman who has no goals and 11 assists in 34 games, is a minus-9 the past 13 games and a minus-5 in the past two. After going 10-3 in the 13 games Zidlicky missed with injury, the Wild was 2-10-4 after his return.
To be fair, Zidlicky's return coincided with several injuries, and Yeo said: "I don't want this to come across that we're blaming Zid. There's a lot of problems right now. A big part of why we're doing it is because he's a guy that can pull us out. If he's playing as well as he can, then we're a much better team."
Zidlicky skated with fellow scratched defenseman Mike Lundin during Saturday's morning skate. He was told he wouldn't be playing officially during a post-morning skate meeting behind closed doors -- behind closed doors most likely because so much was made of the public back-and-forth he had with Yeo on the ice in November when Yeo talked to Zidlicky about his play.
Unhappy before the meeting, Zidlicky declined to comment after it. Other than sitting out the 2008 season finale when Nashville rested veterans for the playoffs, this was Zidlicky's first healthy scratch since Nov. 24, 2007, coincidentally against the Wild.
