ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Mike Yeo almost foreshadowed the Minnesota Wild's game Friday night against the Anaheim Ducks when he spoke about the team's struggling power play following the morning skate.
Minnesota's NHL-leading 19-4-2 run since mid-January has been remarkable. Yet, the Wild's power play hasn't been a big part of the team's resurgence and run to the top Wild Card spot in the Western Conference.
Yeo admitted to being hesitant in broaching the power play with the media. Yeo called Minnesota's record since Jan. 15 "impressive" considering the lack of production with the man advantage.
Friday night, in a possible playoff preview against Pacific Division-leading Anaheim, the power-play misses did hurt the Wild. Minnesota scored one power-play goal but was 1 of 5 in a 2-1 loss to the Ducks.
"Well, it's the kind of game that we expected, to be honest with you," Yeo said after the game. "It seems like every time we play them, it's got that feel that it's one play that's going to make the difference in the game and obviously it's not exactly the way we wanted to play. But there were certainly moments in that game, whether it's on one side or the other, that we could've grabbed a hold of."
The same trouble the Wild had at the beginning of the season -- coincidentally when it was also playing well overall -- had crept up again with a power play that ranked 28th in the league heading into Friday night. Minnesota is converting 15 percent of its power-play opportunities this season.
Zach Parise's 27th goal of the season helped the Wild score with the man advantage for the second straight game. But Minnesota has only converted two of its last 27 chances in the past nine games.
"It's been a tough year with the power play," defenseman Ryan Suter said. "We've gone through good stretches. We scored one tonight. We scored one last game right as it expired, the game before right as it expired. So we're getting some goals. But a game like tonight, we got to be better. It's (a) power-play, penalty-kill game and we got to be able to get a couple."
A couple would have made a big difference Friday. The Wild had myriad chances against Anaheim goaltender John Gibson, who made 32 saves. On five power plays covering 8 minutes, 12 seconds, Minnesota had nine shots.
"It's always a work in progress," center Mikko Koivu said. "You always want to get better at it. We got one. I thought we got a good chance early on. We're just not getting many of those right now. Every time we get it, we need to be sharp, and do the things that we're supposed to do and just be hungry around that net."
The Wild have been winning without goals from the special teams. As they face a difficult finishing stretch of the season, Yeo is thinking about the power play and talking within the team.
He's been reluctant to make any changes, in part, because of the lack of practice time.
"Certainly it's something moving forward that we're going to have to address," Yeo said. "This time of year, like I said, one goal is huge. And we generated enough power plays tonight to hopefully have a chance to get one more goal, but we just have to be ready to move on to the next one."
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