Costly loss for the Wild tonight. Up 3-2 in the third on Kyle Brodziak's go-ahead goal, the Wild handed two points to the team right on its tail.
The Wild nearly crashed Mike Modano's party and could have been seven points up on Dallas with a win. Now it's three with St. Louis, which can take the top spot in the NHL with a win, on deck Sunday in Minnesota to open a four-game homestand. A win could have given the Wild an eight-point lead on Phoenix, too.
Matt Moulson was talking this morning about how excited he was to parachute right into a playoff race. After all, this is a guy that didn't have a lot of meaningful games late in seasons on Long Island and certainly not in the past four months in Buffalo.
Tonight's game had the intensity of two desperate teams fighting for a playoff spot and the Wild battled back twice from one-goal deficits.
But then after taking a 3-2 lead 1:23 into the third, the wheels came off. It started a minute after Brodziak's goal when Matt Cooke took a tripping penalty. I still haven't seen the replay because I was pounding on my keyboard, but the Twitterphere was screaming that it was a knee.
Regardless, the Wild killed the two minutes off and it appears Valeri Nichushkin escaped injury.
But two minutes after the kid, Haula, who scored his first career shortie on a great play in the first to tie the game at 1-1, generated speed again. But as he drove the net, he locked skates with Cody Eakin and bulled into goalie Kari Lehtonen.
Lehtonen was injured, leaving the game with blood on his face and what coach Lindy Ruff said afterward was a likely concussion. Haula got a major for charging and game misconduct.