Wild score seven on Red Wings, hand Howard 20th loss in row

DETROIT-- Mathew Dumba had two goals and an assist, and the Minnesota Wild defeated Jimmy Howard and the Detroit Red Wings 7-1 at Little Caesars Arena on Thursday.

Howard lost a 20th straight decision (0-18-2), allowing five goals on 17 shots before being pulled in the second period. His streak is one short of the NHL high since the shootout was adopted for the 2005-06 season.
"I think there's a responsibility for the team that, when a guy is having a year like this, you want to give him an easy game," Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill said. "We didn't do that for him."
WATCH: [All Wild vs. Red Wings highlights]
The Wild remained three points behind the Nashville Predators and Winnipeg Jets for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference.
"We know the playoffs are right there, but we can't take anything for granted," Minnesota forward Kevin Fiala said. "There are times where it is tough to get motivated against a team like that, but these points are huge for us, and we kept it going from start to finish."

Alex Stalock made 25 saves for the Wild (31-25-7), who have won 11 of their past 16 games.
"We've been talking all year about how we need to get things going, but we sat down a few games ago and said we needed to do it right now," Stalock said. "This is fun hockey to watch, because we've got all four lines rolling right now."
The Red Wings (15-47-4) have lost four in a row, getting outscored 19-5.
"I've never seen anything like it," Detroit center Dylan Larkin said. "I don't know what it is, but when things go wrong for us, they are catastrophic and we can't come back from it."
Minnesota took a 3-0 lead in the first period in a 2:20 span.
Ryan Hartman made it 1-0 at 7:52, finishing a quick three-pass sequence by tapping in Mikko Koivu's feed across the slot.

Ryan Donato, who made the second pass leading to Hartman's goal, made it 2-0 at 8:19 by knocking in the rebound of Hartman's shot.
Minnesota's fourth line of Koivu, Hartman and Donato combined for six points for a second straight game.
"We're just trying to do the little things right and stay focused defensively," Hartman said. "The biggest thing for us and the whole team is to keep hold of the puck in the offensive zone. That's creating a lot of chances."
Dumba gave the Wild a 3-0 lead at 10:12 with a point shot through traffic. The Red Wings then called timeout.
"At that point, I want to keep Jimmy in there and there was lots and lots of time left to play," Blashill said. "I think it just deflates us too much."
Anthony Mantha got Detroit within 3-1 at 7:33 of the second period, taking advantage of an offensive-zone mix-up by the Wild to score on a breakaway.
Dumba hit the post on a delayed penalty but scored on the power play to make it 4-1 at 10:30. Jordan Greenway gave Minnesota a 5-1 lead at 12:05, and Fiala pushed it to 6-1 by scoring on Jonathan Bernier at 18:16.

Eric Staal made it 7-1 at 9:11 of the third period.
"We talked this morning about not thinking too much about who we were playing, but to focus on the way we need to play," Wild coach Dean Evason said. "They did a great job of that."
Howard hasn't won since defeating the Edmonton Oilers 3-1 on Oct. 29. His streak is behind only Cory Schneider, who lost 21 straight games (0-17-4) for the New Jersey Devils from Dec. 29, 2017 to Feb. 14, 2019.

They said it

"We don't have a checking line; we are relying on everyone to play the right way and play defensively and then we're hoping that everyone can chip in offensively. Right now, it is great to not worry about getting our matchups. It doesn't matter who is going over the boards because everyone is doing the right things." -- Wild coach Dean Evason
"We just didn't show up today. That's a team fighting for a playoff spot and this was a great opportunity to try to disrupt their season, play spoiler and take something out of this game and we didn't do that. We didn't show up for our goalies, we just made it so easy for them to generate chance after chance." -- Red Wings center Dylan Larkin

Need to know

Fiala had a goal and two assists and has 16 points (nine goals, seven assists) in his past 12 games. ... The Koivu-Hartman-Donato line had three goals and six points on Tuesday in a 5-4 win against the Columbus Blue Jackets. ... Sam Gagner was minus-1 with two shots in 13:53 making his Red Wings debut after being traded to Detroit by the Edmonton Oilers on Monday.

What's next

Wild: At the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday (7 p.m. ET; ESPN+, FS-O, FS-N, NHL.TV)
Red Wings: At the Ottawa Senators on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; SN1, TVAS2, FS-D, NHL.TV)