Wild coach Mike Yeo gets off skates and onto soapbox

One day after voicing his anger over the Wild's two-month stumble, seething Mike Yeo became cajoling Mike Yeo and discovered his inner Stuart Smalley.

The Wild coach sounded a lot like Al Franken's famous "Saturday Night Live" character who did daily affirmations like, "You're Good Enough, You're Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like You."

"We have a good team. We've proven it," said Yeo, adding, "We deserve to win. We deserve to be winners here. So let's recognize that, let's go into games and play to win because that's what we deserve.

"I think we're good enough."

This came 14 hours after Yeo hit his team where it hurts -- the pride factor, saying in part after a 5-2 loss to Vancouver, "We flat-out stink."

Yeo, who has tried just about everything to jump-start a sliding team now below the playoff threshold, didn't back away from his comments Friday, saying, "They're all true," and that players understand it's "all about trying to get us over that next hump.

"They've been very receptive when I've held them accountable and I've said things," he said. "There's a lot of pride in that locker room."

With a chunk of Wild fans probably wishing Yeo would skate the group into the ground heading into Saturday's game against 30th-place Columbus, Yeo instead scrapped Friday's practice and held yet another air-it-all-out meeting followed by an off-ice workout.

"We've been the best practice team in the league for two months," Yeo said. "We've been unbelievable in practice. We need to be gamers right now."

Players weren't shocked Yeo didn't skate them ragged.

"I think every coach at this point probably exhausted so many different ways trying to get through to their team," defenseman Nick Schultz said.

So how does the Wild, which has been on a downward spiral since Dec. 13, become "gamers" again?

But that shouldn't matter, players said.

"I played on a team here in 2003 that didn't even match close to what teams had in skill and you went out and played a certain style of hockey and you had success from that," Schultz said.

Yeo sees a team "afraid to lose, and it's preventing us from putting our best fight."

"Sometimes when you're afraid to lose a fight, maybe you don't get in the ring," Yeo said. "Losing can contribute to that, and we've lost a lot lately. As an organization, we've come up short the last few years, so there's some feelings there that we have to fight through. But I know that they care. I do. I know it. It's just we have to find our way right now."

The Wild looked to get that back during a recent 3-1-1 stretch before consecutive losses to Columbus and Vancouver. Everybody expects a big response against the Blue Jackets.

The clichés and analogies were plentiful Friday. Players spoke up during the latest team meeting.

"We did a lot of talking today," Heatley said. "It's the time of the year where we've got to stop talking and start doing."

Staubitz waivedIn an attempt to give Brad Staubitz a new home so he can also earn a job next season, the Wild placed him on waivers.

Staubitz, who has no points in 43 games this season and nine points and 246 penalty minutes in 114 games with the Wild, had been scratched in five of the past seven games. Yeo, a big fan of Staubitz, said the Wild is happy with the job Matt Kassian is doing.