His tone weary and his words short, Zach Parise was not ready to attach anything more to Thursday's 7-4 loss in New Jersey than this after the Wild practiced Friday:
"Just a bad game,'' he said.
This appears to be the message that came down from coach John Torchetti after the Wild allowed a season-high seven goals to the NHL's lowest-scoring team, leaving it a point out of the Western Conference playoff picture. It had a last-minute collapse in Ottawa on Tuesday, then allowed two goals to New Jersey in the first 94 seconds of Thursday night's game.
The Wild prepared for Saturday's matinee with Carolina at Xcel Energy Center, a venue in which Minnesota has won just two of its past 13 games.
So Torchetti didn't want his team obsessing about all the bad things that happened against the Devils. "We can't sit here as a team and worry about when things go wrong," he said. "What's happening when things go right around here, too? We just have to handle situations better.''
They'll do it with a slightly different lineup. Torchetti promised changes but offered no specifics. But his actions spoke loudly when he didn't have Thomas Vanek among the lines during practice, and it appears Vanek will be a scratch. Torchetti had Jordan Schroeder skating with Parise and Mikael Granlund in practice.
"Good things can happen with a lot of speed," Torchetti said. "We'll just give it a look and see how it goes.''
The coach also had Justin Fontaine on a line with Jarret Stoll and David Jones.
It remains to be seen whether juggled lines will change results.
Down 2-0 to the Devils, the Wild got back into the game on Nino Niederreiter's power-play goal only to allow the Devils to score the next two goals. In a game filled with turnovers resulting in New Jersey goals, Torchetti stressed puck management.
"We have to do a better job of it and make sure we put it in better spots," he said. "And if we can't handle a play, or make a play, just eat the puck in that situation and battle from there. Don't just expose it.''
Noting the team had allowed just 41 shots in the past six periods of regulation hockey, Torchetti said the team just needs to turn the puck over less often while winning more battles.
And his players were saying the same things.
"We just lost the puck a lot," Parise said. "And they scored on their first three or four chances. We weren't a very good team last night. We've known the situation we are in for a while. I just think we played a bad game. I don't think there is a lack of urgency coming out of here. It's just we played a bad game. Let's move on and play a better one tomorrow.''
Devan Dubnyk, pulled after allowing three goals on eight shots Thursday, will likely start Saturday with Darcy Kuemper day-to-day because of an upper-body injury. Dubnyk said he expected both himself and the team to bounce back against Carolina.
"Things happen, and it was a strange couple goals at the start of the game," he said. "I think it got everybody feeling a little uncomfortable, including myself. But we'll come out and have a good game [Saturday] and win and it will all be forgotten.''
At least that's the plan.
"It's disappointing, it's unacceptable," Charlie Coyle said of Thursday's loss. "We know that. But you have to learn from it. Then we move forward. That's the bottom line.''
