Down 2-0 To Stars, Wild Desperate For Playoff Win
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The Wild are desperate for a win. That's not my word. It's theirs.
"We don't want to be going into the fourth game down 3-0," coach John Torchetti said. "So it's pretty much a desperate game for us."
Ryan Suter used the same word.
"I mean, every game you should play desperate," Suter said. "First game we got away from that, the second game I thought we played desperate. We had looks. Tonight we have to have that same desperation."
The Wild are desperate for one reason – they're not scoring goals, and they haven't been for a while now. They've lost their last seven games in a row, and scored a grand total of seven goals in those games.
"I think they're playing solid defensively," Suter said, "but I also think we're getting some chances and we're just not being able to capitalize on them. Seems like they get a chance and they finish, [but] we just don't have that finish right now."
They haven't changed the rules – hockey is still a game where you have to score more goals than your opponent to win.
That's hard to do when you're barely scoring any goals.
So as the Wild, trailing their series with Dallas 2-0, look to strike back in game three, that issue is front and center.
"When you're getting chances, you know you're doing good things out there to get those chances," said forward Mikael Granlund, who has had plenty of those chances but hasn't capitalized yet in the series.
So how do you score more goals? That's the million dollar question, isn't it? If the Wild had the answer, they likely wouldn't be in this situation. But they do know one thing: They're running out of time.
"Get the puck and just rip it," said forward Charlie Coyle, who hasn't scored in 20 games. "Sometimes I think you look for the perfect shot, and you've just got to get it and put it on net. And things happen, you create more offense when you put more shots on net."
Torchetti summed it all up Sunday.
"We've got to find a way to score a goal," he said.
Desperately.
