Bruce Boudreau: 'It's embarrassing'

Following another spotty performance—and another loss—Wild forward Eric Staal couldn't find any fresh words. "It's not good enough,'' he offered. "Not much else to say.''

Amen, brother. The Wild repeated itself again Monday in a 5-3 loss at Boston, playing some small portions of solid hockey in the midst of many ugly ones. Staal said he "didn't like the way we responded'' after Boston scored twice in the first period to overcome an early 1-0 Wild lead. The second period was particularly horrid.

The Wild was outshot 15-4 in that period as Boston scored twice more. Both goals came off of Wild mistakes, sometimes in multiples. As coach Bruce Boudreau said, the Wild often looked "like we don't know how to play,'' an alarming idea at the start of a four-game, six-day road trip.

Boudreau twice said his team's play in the first and second periods was "embarrassing."

Some additional comments on the game:

--Boudreau was incensed with the Wild's awful defense on the Bruins' third goal. That was the one scored by Sean Kuraly on a rebound that got away from goaltender Devan Dubnyk.

The play started with a Wild turnover, then Boston's Tim Schaller carried the puck through the neutral zone. Nino Niederreiter was caught flat-footed as Schaller zoomed around him across the Wild's blue line. Kuraly was left alone to crash the net and bury the rebound.

"What's going on is, people aren't doing their jobs,'' Boudreau said. "I don't know how else to say it. Nino's not a defenseman, but he should be able to stay in front of somebody.

"And then, when you're coming back, you've got to at least, you can't skate not only by the puck, but there's a guy right there. That's your guy. You've got to take him. It's hockey 101. It didn't happen.''

--Boudreau noted the first Boston goal was fluky, banging off of Ryan Suter. As for the second, he said Dubnyk "can't allow (that), for sure.'' That was the Frank Vatrano goal that hit a post and went in off Dubnyk's pad.

Dubnyk's take on the two goals: "A couple tough bounces there to get down 2-1. I mean, there's lots of time left there. We had a good start to the game and just got away from what we need to do. We'd probably all agree that second period is unacceptable. That's about as far away from the way we want to play as we can get, I think.''

Boudreau sounded like he was already planning to play Alex Stalock on Wednesday at Toronto, in the first game of a back-to-back set that ends at Montreal on Thursday. Stalock probably will play Wednesday, Boudreau said; he replaced Dubnyk for the third period Monday and stopped all nine shots he faced. Dubnyk allowed four goals on 24 shots, the fifth time in 10 starts this season he has given up four or more goals.

--The Wild finished strong, with 12 shots on goal in the third period. Boudreau was unhappy with the number of shots, though.

"You've got to put 30-35 shots at the net,'' he said. "You can't be putting 20, 19, 20, 23, and expect to win. You just can't do it.''