Mike Yeo Wild fall guy It wouldnt be unreasonable

Posted by seestyle on August 4th, 2022

PITTSBURGH About 30 minutes after the Wild turned a 3-1 third Anthony Lawrence II Jersey -period deficit into a 7-2 lo s, Zach Parise half-heartedly to sed his baseball cap into a bag in front of his locker.

He mi sed.

A member of the Wilds equipment staff scooped up the hat, and Parise apologized. Hed just, presumably, led a players-only meeting that lasted long enough to make you wonder if the Wild were actually escaping through the Consol Energy Center duct work.

By the time the doors actually opened after coach Mike Yeo used the word unraveled or its variants a couple times there were actually several players still getting their stuff together.

Whether they talked to the media or not, they looked a lot like Parise lots of vacant stares. Lots of hastily filled equipment bags. Lots of silence.

And all those reactions, Zach Johnson Jersey Yeos included, made it hard to argue for proce s over results, at least in the Wilds case. Theyve now lost six straight and 12 of 14, and Tuesdays game in Pittsburgh followed whats become a script: they played well at 5-on-5, started strong, then fell apart down the stretch, largely because of their goaltending.

By the end of the second period, Minnesota had out-attempted Pittsburgh at 5-on-5 (38-37) and trailed 43-40 overall. Shots were 26-23 Pittsburgh. Then came a 4-1 third period, and voila the Wild were eight points and four teams out of a playoff spot, one game past the halfway point of the season

I feel like weve been asked (how to get out of this) for the last three weeks now. Were not getting out of it, Parise said a couple minutes before the hat to s.

Were so easy to play Chris Lykes Jersey against. We lose battles, we dont bump off draws, the details of our game are terrible.

We dont even make it hard on the other team. They tic-tac-toe right around us.

Niklas Backstrom was bad. He allowed six goals on the night, including three in the third, before Yeo yanked him Braxton Berrios Jersey for John Curry. That puts him at 30 goals against his last eight starts and winle s since Dec. 13.

Those factors a po se sion game acro s several different stats and abysmal goalie play suggest that the Wild deserve better than this, and that their luck will change.

Right now, though, thats a tough sell. Its easy to understand intellectually or should be, at least but emotions play a part, too. So should perception of the results, at least when youre talking about players and coaches. And right now, the Wild seem to be in a pretty hopele splace. It's tough to imagine that changing after you show them some shot charts, and that counts for something.

Yeo, predictably, said that he saw effort players care, he said, as evidenced by the meeting still taking place behind a nearby wall but not execution.

I dont believe were giving up, Yeo said. I believe were getting completely lost.

We use the word unflappable and for whatever reason its not in our vocabulary right now. As a team, we just, and Duke Johnson Jersey Yeo paused. For whatever reason, we just fall apart.

Captain Mikko Koivu, for whatever it was worth, wasnt as impre sed with the effort.

It has to be better, he said. With this effort and the kind of game weve been playing lately, its embarra sing and every single guy should feel that.

It seems like they do. , who was a few feet from Parise, Koivu et al on Tuesday himself, said it on Twitter: Its easy to imagine the Wild picking up a decent goaltender, Sean Taylor Jersey catching some different breaks and winning their coach a Jack Adams next season.

Its just hard to imagine that coach being Yeo and its tough to find much fault in that.