"It was a lot of fun [playing on a line with Granlund and Zucker]," Schroeder said. "They're such highly-skilled players, they support the puck so well and move the puck so well. It was really fun to be a part of. Unfortunately we got the loss, but we'll have to put that behind us and move on."
2. Later in the first period, Jason Pominville made it 2-0 with a snipe from the top of the right circle.
The goal extended the Wild's streak of scoring at least two goals to 30 games, the longest such streak in the NHL. The next closest active streak is 17 games (Toronto). Minnesota's 30-game streak is the fourth-longest in the NHL over the past decade.
For Pominville, it continued his rock solid play of late; the veteran winger now has points in three straight games with one goal and four assists during that stretch. Pominville also has nine points (2-7=9) over his past nine contests and is up to 23 points on the year.
Unfortunately for the Wild, it couldn't hold the lead.
"It was a good start, bad finish to the game," said Wild forward Zach Parise. "Didn't really follow up with much after starting off with a good game and a nice two-goal lead."
3. They say a two-goal lead is the worst lead in hockey. It's proven true often over the last nine days.
Minnesota, playing for the sixth time in that nine-day stretch, has seen a two-goal lead disappear in all six of those games. Against Chicago last Sunday and versus Anaheim on Saturday, it was the Wild erasing said lead. This time, it was Nashville climbing out of its early two-goal deficit, getting a second-period goal from James Neal at 2:25 and a third-period tally from Filip Forsberg at 2:20.
"Obviously, if we want to win a championship it's got to get better. You can't do that," said Wild coach Bruce Boudreau. "You've got to be able to play with a lead. It's tough to play with a lead in this league. It's like prevent defense in football and it never seems to work. You've got to go after them and try to increase the lead rather than just hold the lead."
Forsberg added the game-winner with 6:36 remaining, firing a deflected shot past Darcy Kuemper from the left circle. Ryan Johansen added an empty-netter with 1:18 left in regulation.
"When you give yourself a two-goal lead, you can't let them hang around," Parise said. "You have to get that third one and put them out of the game. And we weren't able to do that."
The Wild has played seven games in 11 nights overall and will hit the road for one game in Dallas on Tuesday and return home for a date with St. Louis on Thursday before getting a much needed three-day break for the All-Star Game.
Still, players and Boudreau were not using fatigue as an excuse after the game.
"I don't know if we ran out of gas. I don't want to use that as an excuse," Boudreau said. " Only one forward played more than 20 minutes. When we have other guys in the lineup, they've got to play. To me, it's as simple as that. When we make mistakes at crucial times, I mean, that's why we lost both games this week. It's because we make dumb mistakes in the third period and it cost us.
"You don't play to win. We are two feet from the red line on the third goal and we don't get it deep. Twenty seconds later, it's in our net and it's because of bad sort outs in our own zone and bad play off the faceoff play. We lose our structure. And it cost us. Even their first goal was a bad coverage in our zone."
