Wild obliterated in critical opportunity against Predators
There's still a little more than a quarter of the regular season schedule to be played but the Minnesota Wild getting drubbed 6-1 by the Nashville Predators Thursday night was not good for business.
Minnesota entered the game with 62 points, six behind both Western Conference wild card holders Los Angeles and Nashville. The loss puts them eight points behind the Predators while the Flames and Blues, both with 63 points, are still in the fight as well.
The night started right as Connor Dewar gave the Wild a 1-0 lead 9:51 into the first period, but the situation got progressively worse from there as the Predators took a 2-1 lead into the first intermission and then tallied another goal on a power play for a 3-1 lead entering the third period.
That's when the full blown collapse happened with Nashville going up 4-1 on a goal by Roman Josi just 92 seconds into the third, followed by goals from Ryan O'Reilly and Ryan McDonagh as the Preds cruised to a sixth straight win while the Wild fell for a second consecutive game.
Filip Gustavsson, who made 41 saves in his last start against Edmonton, was awful. The 25-year-old stopped just 25 of 31 shots and allowed five even-strength goals.
Minnesota has three more games before the March 8 trade deadline and the outcomes of all three and where the Wild sit in the playoff race could be critical in determining the direction general manager Bill Guerin decides to go.
Up next: Wild at Blues, Saturday at 5 p.m. CT.
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Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.