ST. PAUL, Minn. _ Well, the good news is Eric Staal provided the Wild with the game's first goal for a change.
The bad news is that was about the only good news during a 3-2 loss to the New York Rangers, playing for the second time in as many nights, in front of 19,337 fans at Xcel Energy Center _ the largest home crowd of the season _ Saturday night.
The Wild's short-lived lead lasted 181 seconds, and then the stumbling, bumbling Wild reverted back to the Wild of yesteryear _ a team that can't bury odd-man rushes and blows wide-open nets.
The Wild were forced to chase another game, although Matt Dumba's power-play goal early in the third period gave Minnesota a fighting chance. But in the end, the Wild's lack of finish in the second period haunted as the Wild lost a fourth consecutive game for the first time this season and fell to 2-7 this month heading into Sunday's game at Winnipeg.
There was no better example of wasting chances than the freshly created Nino Niederreiter-Erik Haula-Charlie Coyle line in the second period.
Haula led two 2-on-1s, Niederreiter led one. They scored zero goals.
The first one, Haula sent a weak shot right into Antti Raanta's chest. The second, Haula gift-wrapped a pass and wide-open net for Coyle. Coyle, who has one non-empty-net goal in 32 games since Jan. 7, shanked the beautiful chance. The third one, Niederreiter had the puck taken off the stick as he tried to center himself.
Just 75 seconds after the Coyle miss, Oscar Lindberg snapped a 1-1 tie when he scored all alone from 11 feet away. The goal came after a long shift by the Wild's fourth line. Raanta, 11-2 this season on the road and playing for an injured Henrik Lundqvist, denied Chris Stewart from the goalmouth twice.
With Martin Hanzal covering for a pinching Jared Spurgeon, Spurgeon hustled 150 feet to get back in the play. He would have been better off picking up Lindberg because neither Ryan Suter nor Hanzal left the corner despite Spurgeon's reemergence.
That go-ahead goal occurred at 7:46 of the period. The Wild outchanced the Rangers the next eight minutes, but one awful shift by the Niederreiter-Haula-Coyle line carried over to the next shift.
Niederreiter and Haula committed two ghastly defensive-zone turnovers. Devan Dubnyk covered up with big saves, but finally, Jimmy Vesey scored with 2:26 left to give the Rangers a 3-1 lead.
After giving up five shots in the first 16:30 of the period, the Wild allowed six in a 64-second span before Vesey scored.
The Rangers, the best road team in the NHL, improved to 26-9 on the road and 10-3 on the second night of back-to-backs.
Dubnyk, searching for four games for his career-high 37th win, fell to 2-7 (one no-decision) in his past 10 starts. In Dubnyk's first 27 games, he was 18-6-3 and led the NHL with a 1.58 goals-against average and .947 save percentage. In Dubnyk's next 29 games entering Saturday, he was 18-10 with a 2.65 goals-against average and .912 save percentage. In that span, he ranked 21st in goals-against average among goalies with at least 12 games and 26th in save percentage.
With the Wild struggling, for the first time since Nov. 25 _ other than one game Mikko Koivu missed with an illness, coach Bruce Boudreau broke up the Jason Zucker-Koivu-Mikael Granlund line.
Boudreau started Zach Parise on that line with Koivu and Granlund, while Zucker skated with Eric Staal and Jordan Schroeder. Hanzal centered Stewart and Jason Pominville on the fourth line.
By the third, the Koivu line was reunited, Parise was back with Staal and Haula and Hanzal swapped spots.
After an early power play, Staal gave the Wild a 1-0 lead, the third time the Wild scored first in the past 12 games. But just 3:01 later, former Gophers defenseman Brady Skjei scored his first goal against his hometown team.
The Wild have held a lead for 15:41 out of 420 minutes in the past seven games (1-6).
