Last night showed the real downside of a team that can not score goals with any kind of regularity. It has put so much pressure on the Wild goaltending and when they are not on top of their game, the results keep coming up Ls.
Marc-Andre Fleury was not on his best game allowing three goals on the first nine slots he faced. All three could have arguably been stopped, especially the eventual game winner by Nathan MacKinnon.
Dean Evason defended his goalie after the game and praised his team for the way they competed and threw everything they had at the Avalanche net. They finished with 85 shot attempts with 43 making it through to the net.
Evason was adamant about those scoring chances and hiw they were not perimeter based but more from the inside and great looks at the Avalanche net. Yet the fact remains only two were able to to get across the goal line.
The depth scoring has completely dried up and only the top scorers are producing at this point. The Wild clearly caught a tired and beat up Avalanche squad who entered the game tied with the Wild in the Central Division standings. Those two points were critical and now the Wild slip out of playoff position and have dropped seven of the last ten.
Something has to give for sure, and unless a trade is made the only other option are Sammy Walker or Adam Beckman to be summoned from Iowa. Marco Rossi appears on a path to building up his confidence in the AHL and that is progressing well, but the idea of bringing him up and placing undo pressure on him to be a saving grace is not the way management wants to proceed.
So what looked like a key juncture of the season for the Wild to make a move with a seven game homestand has not gone the way anyone had hoped. They are now 1-2-1 through the first four and face Division leading Dallas tomorrow night.
The waiting is the hardest part, or are we really waiting for anything to change at all?