The Minnesota Wild are truly in a free fall, upping their losing skid to seven games on Saturday with an abysmal performance against the St. Louis Blues. While the Blues are one of the more surprising teams in the league with their exceedingly strong play, the Wild looked totally helpless through the entirety of the game, being blanked 4-0 with no offense to speak of.
Minnesota only managed to put 13 shots on goal to St. Louis' 34. That's right - they only put 13 shots in the direction of Brian Elliott, who turned them all away, while Josh Harding was essentially left defenseless, unable to stop four of the 34 that came his way for a .882 save percentage.
St. Louis got the scoring started in the first, with Ryan Reaves finding the net halfway through the period. Barret Jackman and Andy McDonald scored in the second to put the game out of reach, with the latter scoring on the power play. Vladimir Sobotka put the game away in the third with an insurance goal that wasn't needed.
About the only thing that Minnesota did well was hit, and they were still beat in that category. They logged 31 penalty minutes, but only allowed one goal down one man, so that was another good thing. Still, we're beyond the point of looking at silver linings, on a seven-game losing streak with no relief in sight. The Wild are a far cry from where they were near the start of the season and really need to turn things around sooner rather than later.
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