Wild suffer "punch in the gut" by Predators

ST. PAUL, Minn. Minnesota Wild coach Mike Yeo stepped to the podium after Tuesday's 5-4 loss to the Nashville Predators and offered up a simple analogy to describe the loss. "If you've ever been punched in the stomach really hard, that's pretty much what that one feels like," Yeo said. For 49 minutes Tuesday, Minnesota opened the post All-Star break portion of its season the same way it ended five days earlier, by outworking its opponent. The result was a 4-1 lead over Nashville in the third period. What transpired over the final 10 minutes, 38 seconds looked more like what happened when the Wild had lost 15 of 17 games and dropped from the top of the NHL standings to out of a playoff spot in the span of a month. Dany Heatley scored twice, and Cal Clutterbuck and Kyle Brodziak each had a goal, but the Predators scored four unanswered goals in the third to win for the 13th time in their last 15 games. Mike Fisher scored twice in the final 3 minutes to complete the comeback, including a flip from the sideboards that somehow found its way past Minnesota goaltender Josh Harding with 20.8 seconds remaining. "It was an awful goal," Harding said. "Probably one of the worst I've given up in my life. No excuses, no nothing. That one's on me." Four goals usually equate to success for the Wild. They hadn't lost a game in regulation while scoring four goals since Nov. 27, 2010. It had been since Dec. 1, 2008 when they lost such a game on their home ice. When Minnesota returned from the All-Star break on Monday, players and coaches spoke about the importance of each game remaining. With two wins before the break, the Wild had snuck back into the eighth spot in the Western Conference, but six points separated the seventh through the 12th spot in the conference standings. Every win was necessary. Minnesota believed its playoffs began this week and every point becomes critical at the end of the season. Giving away a game like Tuesday will be tough to overcome. "Huge challenge for us because it stings," Yeo said about recovering from Tuesday's loss. "But what we have to do is make sure this is the story today and not a story at the end of the year. If we go back and bounce back with a couple big wins, we could still feel good about where we're coming with our game and the way it's been coming along for us and this one will be forgotten. That has to be our goal." After his 60th career two-goal game and first as a member of the Wild, Heatley still likened this stretch to the playoffs. Minnesota goes on the road for three straight games, beginning with Thursday's contest in Colorado. "We've been talking that every game's a playoff game," Heatley said. "If this was a playoff series, you've got to forget it and drop it and go to the next game. That's what we have to do. Focus on the good things that we did and bring them to Colorado." Nashville's final flurry erased two strong periods. Heatley, who has nine career hat tricks, scored twice in the first. Clutterbuck scored 1:29 into the second to give the Wild their first three-goal lead. Brodziak chipped in his goal just 16 seconds into the third to put Minnesota up 4-1. Heatley assisted on Brodziak's goal, while Nick Johnson and Matt Cullen each had two assists. But with another three-goal lead, the Wild stopped applying pressure. Yeo said it looked like his team was "completely out of gas." "We're lying down on the ice and not trying to get up," Yeo said. "We're doing things we just don't do." One 10-minute stretch of what Minnesota doesn't do, left a bad taste after two and a half periods of doing whatever it wanted to do. "There was a lot of positives early and unfortunately it's one incredibly huge negative," Yeo said.