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Wild try to turn page on ugly loss with scheduled day off: ‘We’re all going to think about it’

dane mizutani, pioneer press
·3 min read

Typically coach Dean Evason is good for a similar response whenever he’s asked about the Wild taking a day off. He encourages his players to focus their energy elsewhere whenever they are away from the rink. As far as Evason is concerned, it’s not healthy to be thinking about the game 24/7.

But even Evason could not spin Friday’s scheduled day off as a positive after the Wild got run off the ice in a 5-1 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday at Xcel Energy Center. He knew his players were going to be stewing on Friday as they sat at home.

“We’re all going to think about it,” he said. “It’s going to hang for a little bit.”

Especially for goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury. The future hall of famer wears his emotions on his sleeve and it was no different as the Wild were getting throttled by the Golden Knights. In fact, Fleury was running so hot at that point that Evason pulled him for the final 20 minutes of play.

“He made a call, and I was fine with it,” Fleury said. “I didn’t find a way to calm down enough. I just got angry more and more. You can’t do that as a goalie. You’ve got to relax and stay calm, otherwise things don’t go well. That’s what happened.”

Asked if the schedule day off might help him clear his head, Fleury started to answer with a cliche before quickly stopping himself.

“It’ll be hard to think about something different,” he said. “We take a lot of pride in our team and winning games. It’s hard to lose this way. Especially for me, as a goalie, (against) my old teammates, it’s a little embarrassing. I’m sure I’ll be thinking about that.”

In that same breath, Fleury noted that the sun will come up on Saturday, and the Wild will get another chance prove themselves. That’s the beauty of the 82-game schedule. There isn’t much time for players to feel sorry for themselves.

There’s no doubt the Wild (27-20-4) are grinding right now. They have lost six of their past eight games, including three straight games out of the bye week.

“You can see the frustration in the way we’re playing,” veteran forward Alex Goligoski said. “You know, when things are going good, it seems like it’s an easy game out there. It doesn’t seem like anything is coming easy for us right now.”

The next chance to snap the losing streak comes when the Wild play host to the New Jersey Devils at 7 p.m. Saturday.

“We have to get back to how we play structurally,” Evason said. “We will remind them of all those things and stay as positive as we can. What else are we going to do? We’ve screamed and yelled and we’ve kicked a few things. Now we’ll stick together as a group, and we’ll get out of it.”

The good news for the Wild is that every team chasing them in the standings also lost on Thursday. That means the Wild woke up on Friday still in playoff position — barely — even if it didn’t feel like it. That perspective is important during arguably their toughest stretch of games so far.

“Just keep it simple and things will come,” Fleury said. “It’s February, right? It’s better to have a rough patch now than later on. Once we get out of this, we’re going to be better for it.”

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