Wild continue inexplicable up-and-down run of poor games at home

All the Wild had to do was copy and paste the defensive effort that stalled Colorado the previous game.

After all, if that strategy was good enough to limit one of the highest-scoring offenses in the NHL to one goal, surely it would keep a much less dynamic Utah Hockey Club in check.

But like they’ve done throughout the season, the Wild left what clicked on the road, and they crumbled 4-0 to Utah Thursday for another stinker on home ice.

“We gave them too easy offense,” veteran winger Mats Zuccarello said. “Not good enough.”

That the Wild would follow up one of their crispest wins with a flimsy loss continues the unpredictability that’s plagued their play for the last two weeks, since they were flattened 6-1 by the Avalanche at Xcel Energy Center on Jan. 9 to snap a four-game win streak.

Even their 3-1 turnaround on Monday at Colorado came after the Wild were thumped 6-2 at Nashville last Saturday during another porous performance in their own end. But the step backward they took vs. Utah was still surprising — considering leading scorer Kirill Kaprizov and captain Jared Spurgeon were back in action from lengthy injury absences and because the Wild had defended so meticulously to upstage the Avalanche.

Not only were the Wild shrewd in front of their crease, boxing out without impeding goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury’s line of vision, but the Wild’s structure started in the offensive zone. Their cohesiveness enabled them to apply steady pressure and consequently spend less time defending a team led by Nathan MacKinnon, the NHL’s top point-getter.

“Where we were kind of getting stuck is we strictly defended in the defensive zone,” defenseman Jake Middleton said after the win. “You saw a five-man unit in the offensive zone defending from there, taking away their time and space, especially for their big dogs, and it worked.”

But that posture went out the window against Utah, which dealt goaltender Filip Gustavsson a fourth straight loss.

Since shutting out Carolina on Jan. 4, Gustavsson has surrendered 23 goals while going winless in five starts.

“We can’t be any softer at the net front than we were [against Utah],” coach John Hynes said. “I’m not even talking about goaltending tonight. I’m talking about what happened in front of him.”

Give Utah credit: the team’s forecheck was pesky, and the players capitalized on the Wild’s spotty coverage.

They actually scored three times in the first period, but one was called back because of goaltender interference on Gustavsson. The goals were a tip after Utah forced a turnover along the boards and a free-wheeling power-play shot by Utah’s best player, Clayton Keller.

“One team is playing up to their standards, and I feel like we didn’t, especially the first,” Zuccarello said. “You’re chasing the rest of the game and just all in all frustrating. We got outplayed in the first period and then you’re chasing the rest of the game, and we couldn’t really find an answer.”

Like the victory over Colorado showed, good offense and defense go hand in hand, and the Wild getting blanked by Utah proved the opposite is true, too.

At 5-on-5, the Wild were credited with six high-danger scoring chances and their expected goals was 1.32, according to Natural Stat Trick. They’ve dropped three in a row at home, getting outscored 15-4.

“We were just fighting it,” alternate captain Marcus Foligno said. “We didn’t seem to have our legs, and that’s when you got to have the smarts take over. This is disappointing. That’s a team that just beat Winnipeg. You gotta just get pucks in and then pound their ‘D,’ and we didn’t do that.

“We were trying to finesse things and really looked a little bit lost and fatigued in the first, and it bit us.”

The yo-yoing is catching up to the Wild in the standings.

The yo-yoing is catching up in the standings. Dallas overtook the Wild for second place in the Central Division on Friday, and Colorado is only two points back. The buffer they built from their first-half prowess, which at one time had the Wild battling for first overall in the league, has shrunk.

Now, consistency would be a sign of improvement.

If their recent trend of alternating wins and losses holds up, the Wild are in line to bounce back Saturday vs. Calgary before they return to the road.

But lately how the Wild arrive at either outcome is more telling than the result itself.

“We’ve got to go back to the drawing board,” Hynes said.

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Calgary update: The Flames have been more up than down lately, winning two in a row and five of their last seven games. Their offense erupted for five goals against Buffalo on Thursday night, with five players scoring and seven picking up at least a point. LW Jonathan Huberdeau has a team-high 19 goals and 35 points. Calgary has struggled on the road, but the Flames did defeat the Jets in Winnipeg on their last trip. They also have a Calder Trophy candidate in G Dustin Wolf, who is 17-7-2 with a 2.49 goals-against average and .918 save percentage.

Injuries: Wild D Jonas Brodin (lower body) and LW Marcus Johansson (concussion) are out. Calgary C Justin Kirkland (knee), RW Anthony Mantha (knee) and C Connor Zary (knee) are out.