NEW YORK – Like a poker dealer washing a deck of cards between hands, Bruce Boudreau did the same to his forward lines Sunday night.
Cranky earlier in the day because the Wild blew a point in an overtime loss across the Hudson River the night before, the Wild coach hinted at tinkering.
"Anything is possible," Boudreau said Sunday morning. "We could tweak something."
He did more than "tweak something" during a 6-3 loss to the New York Islanders that included Zach Parise scoring twice to become the third Minnesotan in history to hit the 300-goal plateau.
Boudreau threw all four of his lines into a blender. Unfortunately, what spit out was a leaky fourth line … and goaltender, and the result was the Wild falling to 0-1-1 on its four-game road trip.
After Parise gave the Wild a 1-0 lead 75 seconds into the second period, Darcy Kuemper gave up three goals in a span of 3 minutes, 8 seconds, including one harmless-looking shot 34 seconds after captain John Tavares tied the score.
"Nobody would have stopped the first goal," Boudreau said. "Second and third goal, I think, were stoppable pucks."
You know the goaltending wasn't great when the locker room talk was how well the Wild played in the second period, and it was still outscored 3-2.