TAMPA, Fla. _ Looking slow and discombobulated, the Wild are suddenly in the midst of something that had become foreign this season: a losing streak.
The Wild lost consecutive games in regulation for the second time this season and first time since Nov. 1 and 5 Thursday night when the desperate Tampa Bay Lightning put on a defensive clinic during a 4-1 beatdown at Amalie Arena.
The Wild fell to 3-3 since acquiring Martin Hanzal and Ryan White from the Arizona Coyotes and more disconcertingly looks like a shell of what they did through their brilliant December-February run. The Wild suffered consecutive losses for the first time since Nov. 29 and Dec. 2 and has scored five goals in the past four games, including one empty-netter and one goal with 11 seconds left in a loss to St. Louis that only served to evade a shutout.
The effort was an ugly way to open a tough, season-long five-game road trip that continues Friday at Florida with likely backup Darcy Kuemper in net and continues to powerhouses Chicago and Washington before ending at Carolina.
Andrei Vasilevskiy improved to 4-0-1 since the Lightning traded Ben Bishop by making 32 saves. Not long after Eric Staal had a short-handed goal waved off because referee Jon McIsaac ruled he pushed Vasilevskiy and thus the puck into the net, Marco Scandella ruined the shutout bid with 3:58 left.
Devan Dubnyk, vying to match his career-high with a 36th victory, had an off night highlighted by a bleeder of a third goal allowed in the second period. The soft goal halted the Wild's attempted push right in its tracks. After giant defenseman Andrej Sustr scored, it was all Lightning the remainder of the period.
The Wild, who could barely complete a pass, could hardly muster a scoring chance despite two Lightning forwards leaving the game permanently with lower body injuries. Vladislav Namestnikov got tangled with Zach Parise, while Nino Niederreiter clanked knees with Tyler Johnson.
Both injuries looked serious and the league was reviewing the Niederreiter knee-on-knee to determine if it was incidental or warrants discipline. In the third, the Lightning lost a third center in Cedric Paquette.
The Wild, so good after losses, fell to 16-4-2 following a loss of any kind and saw their 10-game winning streak following a loss end.
The Wild, with scrambled lines yet again as they continue to try to assimilate Hanzal and White into the lineup and jumpstart struggling Charlie Coyle, was a hot mess to begin the game.
The first 11 minutes, the Wild looked slow. Players were slow skating, slow reacting and slow to every puck, and they paid dearly when the Lightning jumped out to a 2-0 lead by the 11:01 mark.
At that point, the Wild arguably didn't have a scoring chance. Ryan Suter's hard rim hopped over Jared Spurgeon's stick, and seconds after the turnover, Suter took a penalty.
Six seconds into the power play Nikita Kucherov wired a shot over a stunned Dubnyk's glove. The power-play goal, the Lightning's league-leading 51st, was the first against the Wild since Feb. 8, snapping a 22-for-22 streak in the previous 11 games.
Later, after an awful shift by the Niederreiter-Hanzal-White line with Scandella and Nate Prosser, defenseman Victor Hedman hit a bullet over Dubnyk's blocker. This came after Hedman was permitted by the Wild defense to skate from the top of the zone through the slot to let a shot through on Dubnyk.
That goal seemed to wake the Wild up because it spent the final eight minutes of the period with sustained pressure. But the Lightning collapsed close to Vasilevskiy, and most the Wild's effort went for naught. During that stretch, the Wild only registered four shots.
The Wild came out with better legs to start the second, but the Wild was sloppy with its passing and finally Kucherov dropped a pass to Sustr for the 3-0 lead.
