Minnesota Wild head coach John Hynes isn’t going to lose much sleep despite his team’s 7-1 blowout loss to the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday.
“We gotta get our energy back and we gotta have a good day tomorrow. … I think that’s something that needs to be and will be what our focus is, not so much what happened tonight,” he said. “I think we’ve had a lot of good things that have gone on for us this year.
“Tonight was an uncharacteristic night for us. I’m not gonna overthink it. Tonight is what it is. We gotta get ready for Saturday (against the Philadelphia Flyers).”
The Wild entered Thursday’s game in first place in the league with a sterling 19-5-4 record. The loss dropped them to third behind the Winnipeg Jets and Washington Capitals – who both secured at least one point Thursday – but it’s a tight race:
Rank Team GP Record Points P% 1 Jets 31 21-9-1 43 .694 2 Capitals 28 20-6-2 42 .750 3 Wild 29 19-6-4 42 .724The Oilers dominated Minnesota all over the ice, dictating 55.9% of the shot attempts, 68.4% of the high-danger chances, and 60.5% of the expected goals at five-on-five, per Natural Stat Trick. They also held a 35-30 edge in shots.
Edmonton’s star players ran rampant, illustrated by Leon Draisaitl’s four-point night.
“From the jump, it wasn’t our night,” Wild defenseman Brock Faber said. “We just weren’t finding pucks, couldn’t solidify a forecheck, a breakout, couldn’t shut down their top guys. It was just one of those nights.”
Despite the frustration, Faber shares his bench boss’ even-keeled mindset.
“We’ve got to obviously acknowledge that those games can’t happen, but they’re gonna happen,” he said. “Trust the process that we’ve gone through, trust the position that we’re in. We’re still a damn good hockey team.”
This was Minnesota’s second time surrendering seven goals this season and the first since Oct. 26 against the Flyers.
Injuries didn’t help against the Oilers. The Wild were already without the likes of Joel Eriksson Ek, Mats Zuccarello, and Jonas Brodin, but blue-liner Jake Middleton exited after blocking a shot during his first shift and was later ruled out with an upper-body injury.
Forward Marcus Foligno knows Minnesota missed Middleton against Edmonton but wasn’t about to use injuries as an excuse.
“We’ve got some guys out, yeah, but we’d like to show a little better effort than giving up seven goals in our home rink,” Foligno said.
The Wild have lost two of their last three games after winning five straight.