Wild, 1 vs. Rangers, 2

With the way that this team has been playing, the Wild has as much of a chance to get into the playoffs as the Ottawa Senators. It was a night of what-ifs, and with the stretch the Wild have been on and with the position that they've put themselves in, they can no longer dwell on the what-ifs, and the what-ifs are no longer a comfort to fans. The Wild were outplayed by the Rangers, and basically had no puck possession, no sustained pressure in the offensive zone, so basically no offense at all. After Colton Orr took an additional roughing minor in his fight with Owen Nolan, Antti Miettinen took and ill-advised interference call in the the offensive zone, and negated the powerplay opportunity for the Wild. During the 4-on-4 play, with 4.4 seconds left in the first period, Nikolai Zherdev scored to give the Rangers the 1-0 lead going into the second period. The Wild weren't playing all that well in the first and going into the second, you thought that they would've gained momentum when Marian Gaborik scored his first goal since December 23 more than a minute and a half into the second period to tie up the game, but in less time than it took for the Wild to tie the game up, they were again trailing the Rangers when Scott Gomez scored 43 seconds after Gaborik tied the game (now you know you didn't have the game tied long when the opposition scored before you're goal was even announced on the PA). I don't know how the Wild expected to tie the game when with 6 minutes left in regulation the team takes a too many men on the ice penalty, and just when the penalty is about to expire, Nick Schultz does a bone head move and shoots the puck over the glass. That's four minutes of wasted time, and with two minutes left to try and generate offense the Wild did nothing. With Niklas Backstrom on the bench for the extra attacker, the Wild did nothing...well, not nothing, Kim Johnsson took as slashing call with 33 seconds left in regulation to put the Wild out of its misery.

Just the Wild's luck that the Anaheim-Nashville game goes into extra sessions (and the only thing I was rooting for in that game was that it would end in regulation) and each teach has at least a point. Edmonton lost to Detroit, but St. Louis shutout the Kings, so the Wild are now 11th in the Western Conference...and quickly sinking...

Notes:

• Craig Weller and John Scott were the healthy scratches.
• Colton Gillies had a TOI of 3:02; he was on the ice for Gomez's game winning goal, took one shift after (10 minutes between the shifts) and was benched in the third.
• Scary incident in the first when Kurtis Foster lost an edge going into the boards and one of the refs fell on top of him, his skate hitting Foster's head; Foster was OK and played the rest of the game.
  
• Stats: NYR won 65% of the faceoffs (which is closer than what it really was), 70% at even strength; Johnsson was -2 last night
  
• It was a pretty physical game with 60 total hits in the game and "gatherings" after whistles; even Gaborik was physical, credited with 4 hits and pretty good one on Markus Naslund.
• Clutterbuck vs. Avery, Nolan vs. Orr

UP NEXT: Today @ New York Islanders, 6:00pm CT