The Wild used to be almost unbeatable if they had a lead in the third period.
Wild surrender another late lead in loss to Ducks
Minnesota limped into its 10-day break, losing a second game in a row after holding a third-period lead.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
January 28, 2024 at 6:20AM
Now they keep squandering them.
In their last test before their bye week and the NHL All-Star break, the Wild fell apart late for a second consecutive game to get dumped 3-2 by the lowly Ducks on Saturday night at Xcel Energy Center and skid into a 10-day hiatus with back-to-back losses during a ho-hum 4-4 finish to January.
“Very disappointed,” goaltender Filip Gustavsson said.
Through 49 games, the Wild are 21-23-5 and sit six points shy of the final wild-card seed in the Western Conference.
Like in their 3-2 collapse to the Predators on Thursday, poor attention to detail undermined the Wild against Anaheim, which had dropped 13 in a row to the Wild before this — a streak that started on Jan. 20, 2021.
Up 2-1 in the third period, the Wild surrendered the tying goal to Ryan Strome, who tipped the puck by Gustavsson at 6 minutes, 45 seconds.
Then after Troy Terry exited the penalty box after the Wild’s fourth unsuccessful power play of the night (the Ducks went 0-for-2), Terry skated into Wild territory and had his first attempt blocked by Ryan Hartman before depositing the rebound behind Gustavsson at 11:40. Gustavsson finished with 22 saves.
“They’re preventable,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “They’re not great plays that are made by the other team.”
Before these past two letdowns, the Wild were 14-0-1 when ahead after two periods.
“They’re just clear-cut assignments that we have to have, and we don’t do them, and it winds up in the back of our net,” Hynes said. “It’s unfortunate because it cost us two games.”
The Wild weren’t at full strength on offense and their manpower diminished even more as the game progressed.
Marcus Foligno didn’t play due to illness, and since the Wild didn’t have any other healthy forwards available, they went with seven defensemen.
But they didn’t look shorthanded early.
Just after he was recognized in-house for being named to the All-Star Game during a TV timeout in the first period, Kirill Kaprizov previewed a shot he could deploy during the festivities, a wind-up that sent a Mats Zuccarello pass to the back of the net by Anaheim goalie Lukas Dostal (35 saves) at 6:39.
The goal was Kaprizov’s 19th of the season and No. 133 of his career to move past Jason Zucker into sole possession of fourth place on the Wild’s all-time goals leaderboard. Zach Parise is third with 199.
By 8:17, the Ducks retaliated when Terry capitalized on blown coverage in Wild territory to flip a top-shelf shot by Gustavsson.
The Wild, however, exited the period ahead thanks to a deflection by Jon Merrill on a Zuccarello shot with 1:23 left.
This was Merrill’s first game since sitting out six in a row as a healthy scratch. The Wild were down to 10 forwards after Pat Maroon was hurt; Hynes didn’t have an update on Maroon’s status after the game.
Already, the Wild are dealing with injuries to forwards Connor Dewar, Vinni Lettieri and Adam Raska. Marc-Andre Fleury also remains sidelined because of an upper-body injury.
Still, the Wild dominated in the second, testing Dostal a whopping 17 times compared to only four saves for Gustavsson.
“I feel like we created enough,” Zuccarello said.
The Wild did get one puck past Dostal, a seeing-eye shot by Marcus Johansson around a Joel Eriksson Ek screen, but the goal was overturned when Anaheim issued a coach’s challenge and a lengthy video review ruled Matt Boldy was offside earlier in the play.
Not getting an insurance goal to stick hurt the Wild, what’s becoming a familiar theme alongside self-inflicted mistakes.
“When you’re in a 2-1 game, that’s where your details matter,” Hynes said. “You gotta be able to win games 2-1, too. But certainly would we like to get the third goal and extend the lead? For sure.
“We were working towards that, but when it doesn’t happen and then you’re in critical areas where you’re called upon to defend the right way and we don’t, that’s the lesson out of the last two games.”
The Wild have been the surprise of the league as their high-scoring winger makes a shambles of team scoring records.
