ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Several different perspectives were offered after the Minnesota Wild lost in a shootout to the St. Louis Blues on Saturday night.
Minnesota and St. Louis were both coming off overtime wins the night before and had to travel. Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said the two teams seemed tired. Wild coach Mike Yeo didn't disagree, but was pleased his team didn't use the excuse to play less than a full game.
Yet, Hitchcock doesn't believe Saturday was a representative example of the two teams after St. Louis came from behind to win 3-2 in a shootout.
"I don't know about the other coach, but I'm going to throw a lot of this tape away," Hitchcock said. "This is not what both teams play like, but this is what happens when you put so much into the night before."
Yeo wasn't upset with the shootout loss, even after an uncharacteristic turnover by Ryan Suter led to the tying goal with 5 minutes, 33 seconds left in regulation.
"I would have liked to see our guys rewarded with two points," Yeo said. "I'm definitely more pleased with how we played than disappointed that we didn't get two."
Vladimir Tarasenko opened the scoring with a goal in the second period and scored the only goal in the shootout to lead St. Louis, which had beaten Edmonton on Friday. Mikko Koivu and Zach Parise scored for the Wild, who had beaten Dallas.
Niklas Backstrom made 24 saves for Minnesota, and stopped two of the three attempts in the shootout.
"The way we competed, the way that we played at both ends of the ice, I'm more pleased with that and more focused on that," Yeo said.
The Wild, who lost for the first time in overtime or the shootout this season, missed the chance at an extra point in the standings and Parise offered frustration more than positive outlook after the game.
"Frustrating we didn't get the win," Parise said. "I thought we played well enough that I felt like we deserved two."
Parise scored the 250th goal of his career in adding his first power-play goal of the season.
But a night after talking about turnovers and securing the puck, Minnesota was undone by another turnover.
Suter defended at the blue line and forced T.J. Oshie to lose the puck, but Suter tried to clear the zone and the puck was immediately intercepted by Patrick Berglund, who passed a wide-open David Backs for the tying goal.
"Yeah, said it last night, we got to protect the puck and I didn't protect the puck and it ended up in the back of the net," Suter said, later adding: "Both teams were tired. We had enough energy. I thought we played a good game. A turnover cost us the game. But I thought, for the most part, we played well."
The Wild had let a 3-0 lead slip away a night earlier but rallied to win. This time, Minnesota couldn't find the separating goal. The Wild outshot St. Louis 38-26, including 17-5 in the second period when Koivu and Parise scored to give Minnesota the edge.
"It was a game we felt like we deserved to win," Parise said. "I thought we played pretty good for the full game and didn't really give them much. We spent a lot of good time in their zone, a lot of extended shifts in their zone. You try to get that other one to make it a two-goal lead and unfortunately we couldn't."
The Wild finished a stretch of eight out of 11 games on the road. Saturday was the start of a four-game homestand.
"This has been a very tough stretch for us travel-wise," Yeo said. "If we don't have our best effort there's plenty of reasons or opportunity for excuses and I'm really, really pleased with the way that the guys didn't allow any excuses to creep in. We came out hard. As far as I'm concerned we played a full game tonight. I think we deserve better. I'm looking forward to getting some rest."
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