Wild go winless on East Coast trip with 4-3 loss at New Jersey

NEWARK, N.J. – The Wild aren't failing the eye test.

They have been performing in all their recent games except one, occasionally even deserving a better outcome than they received, and they have improved in areas that had been giving them trouble like their starts and defending.

But the numbers tell a different story.

After the Wild were downed 4-3 by the Devils on Sunday at Prudential Center, they return home from their road trip with one point out of a possible six due to three consecutive losses.

Overall, they have only one victory in their past six games.

"There's a lot of positives," coach Dean Evason said. "But it gets tough to continue to talk about positives when you're not getting results."

Despite leading, an edge that was later preserved by a successful coach's challenge, the Wild fell behind during a three-goal second period by New Jersey that saw the Devils' top-ranked power play capitalize twice.

The Wild's own power play had a chance to respond twice in the third, including in the final minutes when the team pulled goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury to have a 6-on-4 advantage. But they managed just one shot on net, from Kirill Kaprizov, and finished a woeful 1-for-6. New Jersey went 2-for-3.

"That's what we're disappointed with," Evason said, "is that we sit still, and they're able just to collapse and stay tight, and we didn't get them out of any formation because we just stood still and tried to make plays."

Earlier in the action, the Wild power play did deliver.

The Devils' Jesper Bratt opened the scoring at 6 minutes, 13 seconds of the first, but Pat Maroon retaliated with 5:07 to go in the period when he got on the end of a rolling puck to tally his first goal with the Wild.

Then in the second, Ryan Hartman backhanded in a carom from a New Jersey shot block to notch his team-leading sixth goal at 2:31 after getting promoted to the first power play unit.

Another goal from Bratt barely two minutes later sent both teams back to square one, but the Wild challenged the play and video determined the Devils were offside.

But by 6:10, New Jersey pulled even for real on a Tyler Toffoli deflection on the power play.

Just 44 seconds later, former Wild forward Erik Haula scooped up a bobbled puck by Vinni Lettieri and launched it behind Fleury.

"It seems like when someone scores, it's like, 'Here we go again,' " Maroon said.

Still, the game wasn't out of reach, especially not with back-to-back power plays on deck.

Those looks, however, produced plenty of pressure but zero goals, the Wild skating away empty-handed even though the top unit hemmed the Devils in their zone for almost the entire two minutes each time.

"Just kind of seems to be the way it is right now," Calen Addison said. "We got a lucky one tonight, but I think we deserved a few more."

With 3:21 left in the second, Bratt added another on the power play, and that became the game-winner after Jake Middleton's first goal of the season arrived with 4:43 remaining in the third period. New Jersey netminder Vitek Vanecek stopped 31 shots; Fleury had 26 saves in his second straight start.

"We got a guy that's six games away from going to No. 2, and we're laying eggs for him," said Hartman, referring to Fleury being six wins shy of tying Patrick Roy for the second-most wins all-time. "That's enough motivation to bring it every night.

"He's gonna get it, and I know he doesn't think about it. But I do, and I know some guys do. We want to be here and see it and do it for him and help him out, and we haven't really helped him out."

The Wild were much more competitive in New Jersey and during a shootout loss in Washington than they were at the start of their trip when they were demolished by Philadelphia.

But until strides translate into success, the team is a work in progress.

"We need to find ways to get wins here and just start moving here," Maroon said. "We can't win one, lose one, win one, lose one, and play a good game, play three bad ones.

"It's not good enough."