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Slumping Wild try to avoid frustration

Mike Yeo, Mikko Koivu, Dany Heatley, Marek Zidlicky, Cal Clutterbuck, Devin Setoguchi

Minnesota Wild’s coach Mike Yeo, center, talks with Wild players, from left, Mikko Koivu, of Finland; Dany Heatley, of Germany; Marek Zidlicky, of the Czech Republic; Cal Clutterbuck and Devin Setoguchi during a time out in the first period of a preseason NHL hockey game against the Columbus Blue Jackets, Friday, Sept. 23, 2011, in St. Paul, Minn. Minnesota won in overtime 4-3. (AP Photo/Tom Olmscheid)

AP

On Dec. 15, the Minnesota Wild were atop the Western Conference with a 20-8-4 record and 44 points.

Today, they’re in seventh with a 21-15-6 record...and 47 points.

Our resident mathletes will note this means the Wild are 1-7-2 over their last 10 games -- they’ve only got one regulation win in their last 12 games -- which is one of the most staggering slides in franchise history. Minnesota’s had tough stretches before, but never on the heels of becoming the best team in hockey...yes, in hockey. From Dec. 4-15, the Wild led the NHL in points. Today they’re in 13th.

The losses have hit the Wild hard, but they’re trying to keep their composure.

“It’s about being professional,” Kyle Brodziak told the Minnesota Star-Tribune. “Frustration is probably the easy way to go about it. The harder thing to do is just to dig deeper and try to find ways to be positive and keep coming to work just knowing in the back of your mind that eventually it’s going to pay off.

“You can’t get frustrated. Frustration is an evil thing that will just make it so much worse.”

The Wild are facing two major problems at the moment. One is a lack of goalscoring -- they rank 29th in goals per game (2.19) and their leading scorer, Dany Heatley, has just 13 goals through 42 games.

The other problem is precedent, or lack thereof. Nobody on the team quite knows how to deal with going from awesome to awful in such a short span, mostly because teams rarely go from “best in the league” to “fighting for playoff positioning” in a matter of weeks.

“I’ve been on teams that had tough stretches, tough times, but I haven’t been on a team that you’ve been on top and then suddenly it goes the other way,” goalie Niklas Backstrom said. “It’s a challenge for us. We have to climb back.”

Unfortunately for Minnesota, things aren’t about to get any easier. The Wild will play five of their next seven on the road in tough locales -- Chicago, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Toronto and Colorado -- with their home games coming against the top two teams in the Pacific Division, San Jose and Dallas.