"You just have to bear down," said Wild coach Bruce Boudreau. "When you get that open net and you the chance, the great goal scorers bear down and make sure they put it right through the net and not try to be cute."
For whatever reason, the Wild was unable to accomplish that enough at home. Now it will shift its focus to the road, where the Wild begins a four-game road trip in Boston against the Bruins.
"We've gotta keep doing it and getting those chances," said Wild forward Mikael Granlund. "At the end of the day, they're gonna go in. We've gotta play the right way, a hard [game] and we're going to get those chances. Eventually, we're going to break a couple of those."
Often times, it's simply a matter of scoring one that can help open the floodgates. Granlund, who will skate in his eighth game on Monday, has yet to score a goal this season after finishing second on the club with 26 goals last year.
Granlund started last season by going through an eight-game goal drought before scoring three goals in the following five goals. Around mid-season, he went through a nine-game dry spell before scoring five in the next six.
Sometimes, that's just the frustrating part about scoring goals.
"You get one and suddenly they start going in," Granlund said. "We've had a few games where we've been generating a lot of chances but they haven't gone in. The odds are, they'll go next time. You just have to trust it, play the right way and get your chances. Maybe you get lucky and get a goal or two."
Boston will be without several of its top offensive players on Monday as Brad Marchand will miss tonight's game with an upper-body injury while David Krejci is expected to miss another week of action, also because of an upper-body injury.
The loss of Marchand, the team's leading goal scorer and point producer, looms especially large.
The Bruins will also be without Spring Lake Park native and former Minnesota State star David Backes, who will miss eight weeks after surgery last week to remove part of his colon (diverticulitis).
When asked by a local reporter about Minnesota's early-season injury problems, Boudreau lamented their absence on the power play and special teams, but also said things could be a lot worse than its current state.
"We have two top-six forwards out," Boudreau said. "But who are we [to complain]? Boston has everybody out. You're not going to hear me complain. It is what it is."
Here are the projected lineups:
WILD
Nino Niederreiter - Eric Staal - Luke Kunin
Jason Zucker - Mikko Koivu - Mikael Granlund
Marcus Foligno - Joel Eriksson Ek - Chris Stewart
Tyler Ennis - Matt Cullen - Daniel Winnik
Ryan Suter - Jared Spurgeon
Jonas Brodin - Matt Dumba
Kyle Quincey - Mike Reilly
Devan Dubnyk
Alex Stalock
BRUINS
Anders Bjork - Patrice Bergeron - David Pastrnak
Jake DeBrusk - Jordan Szwarz - Frank Vatrano
Matt Beleskey - Riley Nash - Austin Czarnik
Tim Schaller - Sean Kuraly - Danton Heinen
Zdeno Chara - Charlie McAvoy
Torey Krug - Brandon Carlo
Rob O'Gara - Kevan Miller
Tuukka Rask
Anton Khudobin
