Wild Keep Losing And It Won't Get Much Better

That's Wild

On Tuesday night, the Wild succumbed to the Vegas Golden Knights by a score of 5-1. While it is a loss that some could have expected with their missing players and the Golden Knights being a very, very good team, it still hurt.

With their previous shutout loss to the Dallas Stars, and some wins over terrible teams like the Kraken and Sabres, the Wild are just stuck in this weird mediocre middle without their north star named Kirill Kaprizov and key contributor Joel Eriksson Ek (among other absentees). 

With their 40-27-5 record, they sit just four points above the just-out-of-the-playoffs Calgary Flames. Before, that was as much as an eight-point gap recently and it has shrunk -- oh, and the Flames have two games in hand which could mean immediately tying the Wild in points and putting themselves in strong contention for a Wild Card spot.

While we thought the Wild were safe before, now teams are steadily marching towards their playoff spot and this team is floundering and it's not going to get much better. Just 10 games remain in this Wild season and they have to face the Capitals, Devils (twice), Rangers, Islanders, Stars again, and then the Sharks for what should be two points. Two of their last three games are against the Flames and the Canucks -- which depending on the result, could mean who gets in the playoffs and who is left on the outside.

There's no comfort anymore.

• Some Minnesota Wild players are sounding the alarm bells after this recent stretch of unfortunate results. While they were once feeling comfy in their playoff spot, now it might get dicey. [The Athletic]
• Now for some optimism or at least thinking about it. If the Wild were completely healthy to start the playoffs, could they be a contender? [Hockey Wilderness]

Off the trail...

• Top prospects in the NCAA tournament this week (Zeev is there). [ESPN]
• The Islanders were certainly upset after a weird goalie interference call. [TheScore]