Wild suffer well-earned and incredibly damaging blowout loss: Key takeaways vs. Predators

NASHVILLE — Five days after the Minnesota Wild pulled within two points of the Nashville Predators for a playoff spot, Minnesota fell eight points back Thursday night by losing to the Predators 6-1 at Bridgestone Arena. Filip Forsberg scored a back-breaking power-play goal late in the second period after the Wild failed dramatically on two consecutive ones beforehand.

Connor Dewar gave the Wild a 1-0 first-period lead, but the Wild immediately gave up consecutive goals eight seconds apart to Yakov Trenin and Cole Smith. Juuse Saros substantially outdueled an incredibly leaky Filip Gustavsson, especially in the second period, when Saros made clutch saves on Marcus Johansson and Joel Eriksson Ek to preserve a one-goal lead. The Wild gave up 1.8 expected goals at five-on-five and 2.77 expected goals in all situations, according to Natural Stat Trick, yet Gustavsson allowed five and six, respectively.

• The Wild have coughed up a one-goal lead in five of their past six losses. The Johansson-Marco Rossi–Mats Zuccarello was minus-3, as was defenseman Declan Chisholm.

• The Predators won their seventh consecutive game since Andrew Brunette cancelled the team’s early arrival to Las Vegas to see U2 as punishment for a bad week of practice and a humiliating home loss to Dallas.

• The Wild visit St. Louis on Saturday night on the front end of a back-to-back. They host Kaapo Kahkonen, Luke Kunin, Nico Sturm, Calen Addison and the San Jose Sharks on Sunday.

Wild give up two goals in a blink

Still feeling high after Connor Dewar scored his fourth goal in the past two visits to Nashville to give Minnesota 1-0 first-period lead, the Wild turned around 49 seconds later and managed to give up two goals in eight seconds for the fastest two goals allowed in team history. It matched the third-fastest two goals in Predators history.

After a brutal offensive zone shift by Johansson, in which he refused to penetrate the middle and ultimately ended up on the ice, the Wild lost a couple of board battles before Roman Josi stick-handled from the top of the zone and down the right-wing wall to set up Trenin at the goal mouth. Freddy Gaudreau lost the ensuing faceoff and, an instant later, Chisholm turned the puck over to Cole Smith, then was dragged to the net by Smith. Gustavsson didn’t stand his ground and gave up a leaky second goal.

Wild’s power play lets them down

With a chance to tie the score at 2-2 in the second period, the Wild drew consecutive power plays and didn’t even record a shot on goal. They couldn’t penetrate the inside, they had trouble keeping pucks in and they tried to finesse their way to the tying goal. It also didn’t help that Zuccarello turned the puck over four different times on the two power plays.

There was one play on the second power play in which Zuccarello and Kirill Kaprizov weren’t on the same page. Zuccarello seemingly wanted Kaprizov to go to the back door, but instead he went behind the net. Brock Faber, who missed the morning skate for an undisclosed malady, also had a tough go on the power play. Ominously, it was obvious what was going to happen from the moment Jake Lucchini took an interference penalty soon after the second wasted power play. Forsberg scored 32 seconds into the advantage for a 3-1 lead. Naturally, the Wild took four shots on their third power play, when the deficit had reached 4-1.

Things got chippy in the second period

For some reason, the Wild, playing for a while without rugged Marcus Foligno and Pat Maroon, needed to be dragged into the fight after not showing any commitment to physicality or non-perimeter play in the first period. In the second, there were several big skirmishes, starting with Kaprizov and Ryan O’Reilly getting into it early in the period after O’Reilly felt that Kaprizov pushed Dante Fabbro onto Saros.

Later, the Predators felt Kaprizov got away with an elbow on Alexandre Carrier. After the whistle, Kaprizov and Carrier got into it again to trigger a huge fracas that ended with Michael McCarron and Zuccarello getting into it while Zuccarello was on the bench. Both got penalties. Not long after, NHL hits leader Jeremy Lauzon wanted a piece of Jake Middleton, and Middleton obliged and beat the daylight out of him.

Three stars

1. Roman Josi, Predators: Former Norris Trophy winner dominated on both sides of the puck and finished with a goal and two assists.
2. Juuse Saros, Predators: Former Vezina Trophy finalist made 33 saves, including the ones he needed in the second period to allow Nashville to hold its one-goal lead until it could break away.
3. Filip Forbserg, Predators: Gave the Preds separation with a late second-period power-play goal and had six shots.

(Photo: Christopher Hanewinckel / USA Today)

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