MINNEAPOLIS — The Minnesota Wild mounted a valiant comeback Saturday in the Winter Classic at Target Field, but it left coach Dean Evason wondering what took so long for his team to get going in the 6-4 loss to the St. Louis Blues. 
“We didn’t get to our [game] until the end,” he said. “We talked to our group about their sense of urgency. It has to be way quicker than the last 10 minutes of a hockey game when we’re pulling our goalie.”
The Blues had a 6-2 lead after the second period, but the Wild outshot St. Louis 18-4 in the third to make it interesting.
“We had a whole ton of chances to get it to one or tie it,” Evason said. “[The Blues] simplified their game and they did it with skill. We did not. We tried to make plays east and west and that can’t happen in this setting.”
Forward Mats Zuccarello had stronger words.
“I think in the first two periods, it’s embarrassing,” he said. “The first two periods, you know, you have 40,000 people coming, freezing their asses off, and we’re playing like that. But I mean, you’ve got to credit to St. Louis too. They have a hell of team, they played well, and they outplayed us for 40 minutes for sure. There was a little bit of push back into third, but it doesn’t really matter.”
Wild forward Marcus Foligno was disappointed, especially with losing the game on their “home” rink. But he chalked a lot of the early struggles to the lack of games recently.
“It’s 12 days now without a game, and you play a Winter Classic when it costs against a really good team,” he said. “We got things to work on, but we had fun. It was a great atmosphere.”
Between the league-wide COVID shutdown over Christmas and positive case numbers with other teams, the Wild hadn’t played since losing to Dallas on Dec. 20, 2021. With Monday’s game in Ottawa postponed, the team has another prolonged layoff until Jan. 6 in Boston, and is mired in a five-game losing streak.
“We haven’t played hockey in a long time,” Evason said. “We loved our practices. We got our touches in, but you get that rhythm of a season. Have another four days before we get going again. We have to find a way. The situation is what it is. Have to find a way to correct our game really quickly.”
Zuccarello refused to blame the rust.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s a big game for us. We [had] lost four in a row, we got to come out with some push, some urgency. And we didn’t do that,” he said. “I don’t care when we last played. That is not acceptable for us as a team.”
Photo: JohnRothwell@prohockeynewslcom
Jill.Rothwell@prohockeynews.com contributed to this report.
You must be logged in to post a comment.