The Minnesota Wild will try to avoid a fifth consecutive loss when they visit the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday night.
The Wild were particularly inefficient in Tuesday’s 5-1 defeat to the Calgary Flames. Minnesota struggled mostly on the offensive end.
“Every team goes through something like this,” Minnesota captain Jared Spurgeon said. “You just have to get out of it. We’re sticking together in there, and the only way to do it is together.”
The Wild will look to reverse their fortune when they begin a brief two-game trip in Philadelphia.
“We’ve taken a step in the right direction, we believe,” Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. “We’re still (ticked) off obviously that we didn’t win, but we took a step in the right direction but not backwards tonight.”
The frustration was evident after the Wild were whistled for a penalty just 24 seconds into the game against Calgary and then quickly fell behind 1-0 on the power play.
Those types of scenarios have transpired throughout Minnesota’s four-game skid.
“It’s a lesson in the season that we learned,” the Wild’s Marcus Foligno said. “Just because you’re mentally ready for the game — we weren’t last game — it’s not going to always result in a win. Take this in stride and move on to the next game. This is what needs to be done, and then some more.”
If the Wild are going to defeat the Flyers, they must improve on the power play and penalty kill. They went 0 for 5 with the man advantage while allowing two power-play goals against Calgary on Tuesday.
“Our power play has been real good, but it needs to score goals, and these were playoff-atmosphere games,” Evason said.
The struggling Flyers have dropped four of five games during their season-high eight-game homestand.
Philadelphia was blanked 3-0 by the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday.
“We’re fighting just to win,” the Flyers’ Scott Laughton said. “It’s been a tough couple months for us.”
The Flyers managed 39 shots on goal but were unable to get many shots through traffic in front.
“We didn’t have the A-plus execution, that’s for sure,” interim head coach Mike Yeo said.
The Flyers couldn’t capitalize on the momentum of last Saturday’s 2-1 win over the Washington Capitals. Wins have been scarce in a season filled with a separate 10-game skid and a franchise-worst 13-game losing streak.
Yeo refuses to accept losing.
“We have to have that mindset that you take pride in doing things that winners do, day in and day out,” he said. “I don’t think that it would serve us any good whatsoever just to mail in these games and develop bad habits and, in particular, have that kind of attitude, that kind of character and expect that things are going to be different next year. Because that’s not the case.
“We have to develop them right now. And once we start to build that pride and that respect, then we’ll carry that into next season with us.”
–Field Level Media