Well at least we tried harder tonight. Not that it mattered. A loss is a loss. We need a solid 60 minutes out of the boys and we could still turn this one around. Those defensive lapses will always kill a team like Minnesota against a team like Anaheim.

It was nice to see the guys coming out flying right away tonight in the 1st. Good intensity. Needs to be carried throughout the entire game.

We can't be giving up shorthanded goals like we did in the 2nd. We can't even afford to give up power play goals. And we certainly can't go down by 2 goals against a team like the Ducks. Ironically, Wes Walz predicted in an interview before Game 1 that the team that executed better on the power play would win each game in this series. That is exactly what happened tonight sans giving up the shorthanded goal. Unfortunately, things may have been different for us had that not happened. By the way, what exactly did happen to cause that? Anyone DVR it? Would love to see the replay and find out where the breakdown occurred. Probably on some line change. I thought we were beyond those mistakes of yesteryear. Guess not.

In the 3rd, another nice effort. A couple of unfortunate bounces and Bouchard's post, but you gotta convert. Koivu's goal was a nice, opportunistic effort. Did you see how far back from the net he was? Maybe, instead of crashing the net, we should just camp out 10 feet from the net. Worked for Parrish earlier in the year. The fellas gave a nice effort at the end, but it was simply not enough and, again, the better team won.

I really liked the play towards the end of the game. Hopefully that gives the Wild some momentum coming back home for the next two. Unfortunately, now it really is "do or die" as this year's official NHL's Stanley Cup logo goes. It's gut check time for the boys. Are we just happy to be here or are we gonna do something, make some noise and pull out some wins? Clearly, we need work. Let me know your thoughts on further adjustments.

Enough of the annoying orange towels and the duck call horn. The playoffs are coming back to the State of Hockey. Let's start acting like it Wild! We can still do it. You just gotta believe Wild Fans!!

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