Wild find the going tough against goalie from deep on the Ottawa bench

The Senators were down to their fourth-string goaltender, but the Wild made Ottawa’s depleted crease a nonissue.

Still missing Kirill Kaprizov as he deals with a lingering injury, the Wild stalled 3-1 against the Senators on Sunday at Xcel Energy Center for their fifth loss over the past seven games.

“Not our best, for sure,” Mats Zuccarello said. “But you gotta give them credit, too. They play hard. They made it hard for us. Sometimes it goes like that.”

Ottawa’s Josh Norris broke a 1-1 tie on the power play at 12 minutes, 42 seconds of the third period, his one-timer rewarding rookie goalie Leevi Merilainen with his second career victory after Merilainen made 30 saves.

Claude Giroux added an empty-netter with 44 seconds remaining.

“We weren‘t the smarter team tonight,” Wild coach John Hynes said, “and ultimately that’s probably why we lost.”

Like the Wild, the Senators weren’t at full strength, but they have even more deficits than the Wild.

Both of their veteran goalies are hurt, and because the more experienced Mads Sogaard played Saturday at Winnipeg, Merilainen was next up, and he seized the opportunity.

“The guys kept the shots to the outside for the most part,” the 22-year-old Merilainen said, “and I feel like we had the game in our hands pretty much the whole time.”

The only puck that eluded him was a Frederick Gaudreau deflection off a Declan Chisholm shot with 2:41 to go in the first period for Gaudreau’s 50th career goal. This was the fourth straight goal the Wild defense factored in after the blue line was a catalyst for the 3-2 overtime rally at Dallas on Friday by scoring or setting up every goal.

Marcus Foligno and Yakov Trenin also picked up assists on Gaudreau’s goal to extend Foligno’s point streak to three games.

Capitalizing first should have suited the Wild on home ice and against an opponent in Ottawa that was finishing up a back-to-back and coming off a pair of losses.

But the Senators became more of a handful in the second period.

“First period, we were just chipping pucks in and getting in on our forecheck,” Chisholm said, “and then the second period was the opposite, turning pucks over in the neutral zone.”

Just 1:47 into the period, Ottawa answered back when Ridly Greig stuffed a carom off the end boards into the Wild net before goaltender Filip Gustavsson could reset — a goal that Hynes described as a gift since the Wild turned the puck over and then were hemmed in their own zone.

The Senators ended up outshooting the Wild 11-0 before the Wild tested Merilainen. Gustavsson finished with 34 saves.

On the Wild’s first of two power plays, Zuccarello and captain Jared Spurgeon hit the post — this after a tip by Matt Boldy off a Zuccarello shot clipped the post in the first. The Wild are 0-for-13 on the power play over their past five games.

“One of those, two of those go in, it’s a different game,” Zuccarello said. “But at the end of the day, it’s not good enough when you lose.”

The third period was the Wild’s best vs. the Stars, and while they did put more pressure on Ottawa, they never recaptured the lead.

Instead, the Senators surged ahead on their second power play when Norris buried a Jake Sanderson feed from inside the right faceoff circle.

“Lots of times it comes down to details,” Hynes said. “That’s why we stress it, and tonight I thought we put ourselves in a few vulnerable situations and they capitalized on them.”

This was the second game the Wild were without Kaprizov since it was announced he has a lower-body injury, but the Wild did get a different key player back in action.

Joel Eriksson Ek returned after sitting out 11 games. The center last played Dec. 3 vs. Vancouver, getting hurt when he banged knees with the Canucks’ Jake DeBrusk.

“Just an unlucky play,” said Eriksson Ek, whose absence was reflected in the Wild’s performance while he was on the mend.

The team went 5-6, which included a recent, season-long four-game losing streak.

Although his addition to the lineup brought better balance, it didn’t ignite the offense, and the Wild suffered a narrow loss inflated by an empty-netter after their previous two wins were one-goal finishes.

“We had opportunities,” Hynes said. “We didn’t get puck luck tonight to go in.”