A Little Backwards

So besides Derek Boogard and James Sheppard's tag team turnover, I thought the Wild played pretty responsible hockey in their own end. What they lacked for the entire first period was energy. They seemed to be playing the system properly, but in slow motion. Naturally, the Canucks moved at normal speed.

Niklas Backstrom found the molasses as well. He was not sharp at all tonight, making approximately zero good saves. He also allowed a couple of soft goals. The first came at the tail end of a Wild power play, as Henrik Sedin made a good shot off of Alex Burrows drop pass, but not an impossible shot. Backs lost it, and the Canucks regained their two-goal lead for the first time. On Vancouver's second lead recovery, Backstrom slid to the right side of the net, as Matt Pettinger tried to decide what to do with the puck. The Canuck chose to try and go through Niklas... and it worked. The puck trickled into the goal, and all the momentum the Wild had built throughout the second period trickled away.

Speaking of power plays, the Wild have been in more than a bit of slump on theirs. Over the past seven games, the Wild are 3/26 (11.5%) on the power play. In tonight's game they were 0-fer 5. They didn't look very good in doing it either. They took some shots, but really only had a couple of good scoring chances during ten minutes with the man advantage. They just don't seem very organized on the power play, getting stopped in the neutral zone on some break-outs. Kim "Power Play Captain" Johnsson has been out with an injury, but the Wild have had ample time to adjust to one average player's absence. Power plays are supposed to be a reward at the end of a good shift. The Wild's are instead killing any and all momentum they've gained, thanks to poor puck handling and goaltending

The days off did their job in resting and rusting the spirit right out of the Wild. It's not too late to make their season respectable, but it's going to be hard. And this group of players just doesn't seem ready to work hard, every single night.