Same old story

The Wild have been consistently inconsistent so far this year, and it's enough to make any fan wonder if they'll ever put together a complete hockey game.

They might as well be working in a cemetery, with all the grave-digging they've accomplished this season. Over the first and second periods this season, the Wild have been outscored 14-5, and it wasn't any different last night, as the Wild made some more fundamental errors that cost them the game before it really had a chance to develop.

In under two minutes, the Wild made a line change after a failed dump by Kyle Brodziak. If I knew more about hockey, I could assign some blame. My instinct is to point the finger towards the coaching staff for assuming Brodziak would succeed in getting the puck into the Anaheim zone. The puck instead bounced back to the Wild blue line, where the new Wild line couldn't catch up to Corey Perry, who was left to beat Backstrom one-on-one. Niklas couldn't bail the Wild out. 1-0 Anaheim.

Later in the period, Corey Perry again got positioned between the defense and the goalie by a simple give and go, and again schooled Backstrom with a nifty hesitation. By the end of the first period, it was already a two-goal game, with the Wild barely threatening with any chances of their own.

The second marked a change in momentum, as the Wild began to control the puck in the offensive zone, and created some good scoring chances... but did not score. They kept sustained pressure, but with most of their good finishers scratched with injuries (Sykora, Clutterbuck, Bouchard), they were unable to capitalize on the good looks that they got. With the mounting pressure in their zone, Anaheim committed a penalty, and it looked like the perfect opportunity for the Wild to get back in the game. However, on the power-play the Wild looked powerless, as Anaheim played keep-away. The Wild could not catch up to the puck, and had possession for maybe thirty seconds total. On their own power play. For the rest of the period, the Wild did not create many more chances, the ones they did create were wasted by lackadaisical effort.

The most pronounced of these failures to capitalize was on a good breakout by Marty Havlat, who took the puck all the way down the ice, unhindered, and made a great centering feed... that went through the crease untouched. His line-mates failed to keep up with him, much to their detriment, as it would have been an easy goal to an open net if they had only maintained their acceleration towards the Anaheim crease. A couple of minutes later, Anaheim padded their lead after another failed clear-attempt, and though an entire period remained, the Wild would not make a serious push for the rest of the game.

Eric Belanger was the star for the Wild, single-handedly scoring the Wild's only relevant goal on a takeaway, breakaway, putaway. It was a great play, but not of the kind the Wild need to start winning hockey games. The telecast had a good stat last night: The Wild had scored over 70% of their goals on the power-play. It's important to have an effective power-play, but to have that kind of ratio speaks more on the even strength ineffectiveness than good special teams play.

They still have the opportunity to improve. They played one good period tonight, just like they played one and a half good periods at San Jose. The key is to make those other periods competitive at the very least.