1. Wild coach Bruce Boudreau seemingly predicted the difficulty in Friday's game.
For the first time in two weeks, the Wild was not playing a team currently inside the playoff picture. But there were other factors at play.
Minnesota was coming off perhaps its most impressive win of the season on Thursday night in Tampa, a 3-0 shutout win at Amalie Arena.
Florida, meanwhile, was coming off perhaps its most gut-wrenching loss, a 4-3 defeat in Boston where the Bruins scored a pair of goals in the final minute of the game to turn a Panthers win into a loss. Then, they stewed on it for 2 1/2 hours on the plane ride home.
Boudreau said in his pre-game availability that he thought Florida would come out motivated.
"You look at the history of teams, they don't sulk, they come out hard when they've lost a game like they did last night," Boudreau said. "You have to put them away and beat them down-type thing.
"To me, the first period is the key to tonight's game. We've gotta come out with the same kind of energy, the same game plan and the same kind of effort we had last night if we want to continue this little roll that we seem to be on."
In front of a quiet arena, the Wild was unable to find that kind of energy. Just 61 seconds into the game, Jonathan Huberdeau made it 1-0, then Florida scored a pair of goals late in the period less than two minutes apart to take a three-goal lead into the first intermission.
2. The Wild's eight-game points streak came to an end.
A stretch of games that began on Feb. 21 in New York and continued in Detroit the following night came to a screeching halt in Sunrise as Florida scored three first-period goals and had another one waved off because of offsides, driving goaltender Devan Dubnyk from the game at the start of the second period.
Minnesota was unable to dig out of that hole, losing in regulation for the first time since Feb. 19 against Anaheim.
3. The game on Friday brought to a close a daunting stretch of games over the past week.
The Wild has played five games in the past seven nights, traversing three time zone and two different countries spanning from Calgary, Alberta to South Florida.
In all, the Wild flew about 3,600 miles in the air.
Four of the five games the Wild played came against teams currently at the top of their divisions.
Now, the Wild heads home and begins a season-long five-game homestand on Monday night against the San Jose Sharks before a crucial matchup next Thursday against division-rival Dallas. Minnesota hasn't been great at home this season, but its recent stretch of games on the road means it will have plenty of chances to get things righted at Xcel Energy Center.
