Evening from Glendale, Arizona, where the Wild was shut out 1-0 by the Coyotes. Ilya Bryzgalov made 25 saves for a relatively simple shutout and 2:20 into the third, Taylor Pyatt scored the first goal on Niklas Backstrom since 9:24 into the first period at Chicago on Jan. 25.
As Keith Yandle said, Backstrom "was kicking tonight. When he's playing at his best, it's really tough to get one by him. We've seen him do that before and we knew it might be a 1-0 game. He's such a good goalie, if we get one by him we had to make it stand up."
Backstrom was extraordinary behind a flat, flat team. He stopped 40 of 41 shots, including several, as Shane Doan said, "incredible ones."
But the Wild couldn't sustain any real pressure. They were beaten to pucks, couldn't chase down dumps and the D had a difficult time getting the puck up to the forwards. The Coyotes looked to be the quicker and more desperate team.
Look, every team's going to be tired or flat once in a blue moon. That's understandable. But it's not affordable, not in this conference.
The Wild slipped from 7th to 9th and will drop more, you can guarantee, because it's idle until Wednesday's home game (it'll honor Andrew Brunette for his 1,000th game that night) vs. Colorado.
Matt Cullen's injury and Jared Spurgeon's illness hurt because three forward lines were fouled up and the Wild lacked two of its usual power-play pointmen. The good news is both should be back by Wednesday, and others, like John Madden, who is clearly hurt, will have time to rest up.
Flat game all around, but as Backstrom said, "One bounce there, one bounce here, we could have tied it."
