Wild at Red Wings
The Minnesota Wild can’t seem to find the form that led to a position atop the Western Conference when the month began but will attempt to pull themselves out of the funk with a road contest against the Detroit Red Wings on Sunday afternoon. The Wild are a baffling 3-10-0 in March - 1-7-0 over their last eight - and were booed off the ice Saturday after a 4-2 home loss to Vancouver - their fifth this month to a team not in a playoff spot.
“That was embarrassing. I’m embarrassed,” Minnesota coach Bruce Boudreau, whose team remained eight points behind first-place Chicago in the Central Division but clinched a postseason berth with Los Angeles' loss on Saturday, told reporters after the latest defeat. “If I were the fans, I would be booing even more because they pay good money for this, and to see an effort like that?” The Red Wings begin a rare stretch of three games in three days, stemming from a postponement of the contest at Carolina on Dec. 19 due to poor ice conditions. Detroit, which might not have agreed to Monday’s makeup contest if it were in the playoff chase, will play the Hurricanes on consecutive nights in Raleigh. “It’s nice the game on Sunday is 12:30 in the afternoon, so we can get in at a decent time,” Red Wings forward Justin Abdelkader told the Detroit Free Press. “We have to take care of our bodies. … It’s going to be tough, none of us have experienced it at this level.”
TV: 12:30 p.m. ET, NBC
ABOUT THE WILD (44-24-6): Boudreau lamented the loss of one-on-one battles and the lack of emotion in his team’s play Saturday, telling the media: “In front of (our) net, it seems like teams have total leeway. They’re doing what they want, whereas we can’t get to the net.” Eric Staal scored his 25th goal in the loss to Vancouver to pull even for the club lead with Mikael Granlund, who tops the Wild with 66 points and is two shy of 200 for his career. Ryan Suter recorded the other goal Saturday and fellow defenseman Matt Dumba has notched four points in his last five games.
ABOUT THE RED WINGS (29-32-12): Captain Henrik Zetterberg continued his solid season with his 16th goal in Friday's 2-1 overtime loss to Tampa Bay and leads the team with 61 points, with 20 coming in the last 16 contests. Zetterberg is three points shy of 900 for his career and would finish the season with 1,000 games played if he competes in the club's final nine. Jimmy Howard, who sat out Friday’s game, has picked up where he left off before a knee injury took away almost three months of his season by allowing just seven goals over his last four contests (3-1-0).
OVERTIME
1. Minnesota LW Zach Parise registered a goal and four assists over a four-game span before being kept off the scoresheet Saturday despite unleashing a team-high five shots.
2. Detroit LW Tomas Tatar, who leads the team with 21 goals, netted six tallies in three games but has gone without a point in his last two.
3. The Wild are 5-2-2 in their last nine meetings with the Red Wings, including a 6-3 home victory on Feb. 12 behind a two-goal performance by Parise.