Postgame Hat Trick: Jets 7, Wild 2

Wild.com's Dan Myers gives three takeaways from the Wild's 7-2 defeat against the Winnipeg Jets at Bell MTS Place in Winnipeg on Monday night:

1. The Wild got on the board first, thanks to best buddies Jason Zucker and Charlie Coyle.
The whole play started back at the defensive blue line when Gustav Olofsson stepped up and forced a turnover. All of the sudden, Minnesota was off toward the net 3-on-1.

Coyle carried the puck down the right-wing boards and fed a laser of a pass to Zucker down the left wing. With Jets goaltender Connor Hellebuyck moving off the right post, Zucker flipped the puck to his backhand and roofed a shot over the outstretched left pad of the goaltender at 8:01 of the first.
Minnesota got the start it wanted, getting a goal from Chris Stewart six minutes later. But things went completely off the rails after that.
Winnipeg rallied for two goals less than two minutes apart before the end of the first, scored two more in the second then piled on with three more in the third.
"We started losing battles," Zucker said. "We gave them a couple power plays, they scored a couple of goals and it seemed like that was it."
2. Stewart's goal snapped a lengthy scoring drought.
After Zack Mitchell appeared to make it 2-0 moments earlier -- a goal that was reviewed and overturned because Coyle was ruled to be offsides -- the Wild's fourth line set up shop in the Jets zone.
First, Marcus Foligno won a board battle behind the net. He worked the puck to Matt Cullen near the right post, who saw an open Stewart 15 feet away. The veteran pivot dealt a nice pass to Stewart near the left hashes, and he fired past Hellebuyck for his seventh goal.

The goal for Stewart was his first since Oct. 21 at Calgary, a stretch of 16 games without a goal.
Unfortunately for the Wild, the fourth line couldn't sustain its early success, as it was one for two goals against later in the game.
"I thought the first period, they were going good," said Wild coach Bruce Boudreau. "Then all of the sudden, I think it was three or four shifts in a row they got scored on."
3. Minnesota finished a critical stretch of three games against Central Division rivals with a 1-2-0 record.
The Wild scored a 3-2 shootout win over the Avalanche on Black Friday back in St. Paul, capturing the only points it would muster during the span.
A 6-3 loss in St. Louis and Monday's 7-2 defeat in Winnipeg will leave a sour taste in the mouth of Minnesota, which now returns home for two games -- Vegas on Thursday and a rematch with the Blues on Saturday -- before hitting the road for a week next from Monday in California.
"It's two games we really felt like we needed," Cullen said. "And to come in here and play the ay we did is unacceptable. That falls on all of us."

"We're not where we need to be yet as a group," Cullen said. "I think we all need to make a decision on the way we've been playing. We gotta turn things around. We have the pieces to do it."

Loose Pucks

• Minnesota has allowed 30 goals in its past seven games. "You can't win in the NHL if you want to do that," Boudreau said.
• Winnipeg finished 2-for-5 on the power play, while Minnesota went 0-for-1.
• Hellebuyck stopped 17 of 19 shots.
• Wild goaltender Alex Stalock finished with 21 saves.
• Defenseman Ryan Murphy made his Wild debut and skated in 16:45. He was one of two Minnesota players to post a plus (Zack Mitchell).
• The five-goal margin snapped a four-game streak of one-goal games between the teams.

He Said It

"We had a good start. We had some breakdowns. When we're playing well, we're playing strong and solid defensively. Tonight, we had some big breakdowns in our own end that turned the momentum and cost us." -- Wild forward Matt Cullen

Dan's Three Stars

* Blake Wheeler
\\ Mark Scheifele
\\* Kyle Connor