Wild lose first game as Ducks rally for two goals in third

ANAHEIM, CALIF. – Bruce Boudreau, the always congenial Anaheim Ducks coach, made a bold prediction about the Wild on Friday morning: "I don't think they'll go 82 games without giving up a goal."

The Wild tried to prove Boudreau wrong later that night, extending its season-opening shutout streak to eight periods as rookie Darcy Kuemper broke the franchise-record shutout streak.

But then the third period began.

Andrew Cogliano's shorthanded goal and Corey Perry's backbreaking winning goal led to the Wild's first loss of the season, 2-1.

"We played a good road game. We played hard game," said Kuemper, who made 25 saves. "This is one of the toughest buildings in the league to play in. That's a team that can score a lot, and we limited their chances. It comes down to a few bad breaks."

After not playing for six days, the Wild dusted off its road whites and tried to rain on last season's Pacific Division champions' home-opening party the way it did to Colorado, last season's Central Division winner, last weekend.

But the Wild played a sloppy third period, was done in by a couple mistakes from young players and left a ton of potential goals on the Honda Center ice.

Nino Niederreiter shanked two chances in the first period, including one where he was standing alone in the slot. In the second period, veteran Jason Pominville fanned on two shots with an open net in front. In the third period, Charlie Coyle hit the post and Jared Spurgeon missed a wide-open net moments before Cogliano's tying goal.

When Wild players weren't blowing chances, Frederik Andersen was denying them with 27 saves.

"My chance there was a huge chance," Niederreiter said. "It was a great pass by [Erik] Haula and bad execution by myself. We had a lot of those plays which we didn't bear down, and it cost us the game."

Kuemper broke Niklas Backstrom's franchise-record shutout streak by extending his to 163 minutes, 46 seconds to start the season. But the Wild gave up the tying goal on a power play when rookie Matt Dumba overskated a puck along the wall. Thomas Vanek had the blue line covered, but he tried to flip a puck deep that was blocked. Cogliano got behind and was off to the races. He scored 4 minutes, 2 seconds into the third.

The Wild's power play is now 0-for-11 this season.

Later Jason Zucker, who scored the game-opening goal early in the second, passed a puck to the center of the defensive zone from along the boards instead of chipping it out. The puck hit Dumba's skates. Kuemper, left stranded, made an initial robbery, but the rebound went right to Perry, who rarely misses from the goalmouth.

Parise said Zucker had the right idea and it was the right play, but "we just didn't execute it, and it's in the back of our net and that's the game."

"We put ourselves in a situation where a mistake like that ends up being the difference," Yeo said. "We had empty periods right from the first period. We're making great plays to create those chances, but you've got to finish."

Zucker, the 22-year-old born down the freeway in Newport Beach, stopped a scoreless deadlock with his second goal of the season 2:08 into the second. The speedy winger caught former Wild teammate Clayton Stoner flat-footed and wired a shot underneath Andersen's glove.

But that would be the only mistake Andersen would make.