Wild’s slippage continues against Utah with third loss in a row

The Wild are done with their toughest matchup of the weekend, and next up is the best team in the NHL.

After getting dumped 2-1 by a rolling Utah Hockey Club on Friday at Xcel Energy Center to end a miserable homestand with their season-high third straight loss, the Wild will face off against the first-place Jets in Winnipeg on Saturday night.

“It’s tough,” alternate captain Marcus Foligno said. “There’s no easy games, and we’re fighting through it right now. We’re in a little bit of a sludge and just gotta go through it, and it takes all of us to get ourselves out of it.”

Dylan Guenther’s second goal of the game broke a 1-1 tie at 10 minutes, 1 second of the third period, with Guenther wiring a puck by goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury only five seconds into a power play that started with another faceoff loss for the Wild’s beleaguered penalty kill.

Fleury finished with 16 saves and Karel Vejmelka 28, including 11 during five penalty kills for Utah, which has won four in a row, is on a seven-game point streak and has only one regulation loss in its past 11 games.

“Our power play, we didn’t score, but man did we generate,” coach John Hynes said. “We gave up one shot on the penalty kill in 4 minutes and 10 seconds. So, yeah, that’s the way it goes sometimes.”

The Wild were still down five regulars, but they did have Brock Faber on their blue line.

Faber left during the last minute of the 6-1 romp by the Panthers on Wednesday after taking a shot to the right side of his neck. After struggling to breathe initially, the defenseman went to a hospital to make sure the swelling wouldn’t progress to the point where he couldn’t breathe. Faber said he’s on medication, and his voice — which sounds raspy — has improved; it’s like he has strep throat (minus the chills, he noted).

“It was definitely scary, but doctors took care of me,” Faber said. “Very, very thankful that it got me where it did because it could have been a lot worse.”

Injured goaltender Filip Gustavsson and forwards Joel Eriksson Ek and Yakov Trenin skated Friday morning, but the Wild rolled out the same personnel except for one change on defense: Travis Dermott made his second appearance in place of Jon Merrill after Dermott was claimed off waivers from the Oilers a week earlier. Travis Boyd, who was called up from the minors, was the team’s lone healthy scratch at forward.

The Wild looked ready to atone for their meltdown against Florida, capitalizing on an odd-man rush when Marco Rossi passed to Mats Zuccarello, who handed off to Kirill Kaprizov before one-timing in the return feed at 10:20.

The goal was Zuccarello’s first in four games since returning from a month-long hiatus after getting struck by a shot in the midsection. Kaprizov, who is tied for third in league scoring with 49 points, has assisted on all seven of Zuccarello’s goals.

But the Wild’s lead didn’t last long: Only a minute later, the rebound from a Jack McBain shot bounced off Guenther and past Fleury.

“Five-on-five we need more goals,” said Foligno, who also called for more connectedness and urgency in the Wild’s play. “I don’t think we’re getting a lot of production right now offensively from a lot of other individuals, including myself. We need to step up. It can’t just be a Kirill and Zuccy show.”

Utah had the next goal, too, when McBain — the one-time Wild prospect who was traded after he told the team he didn’t want to sign — buried a blocked shot almost halfway through the second, but the Wild successfully challenged for goaltender interference; Kevin Stenlund’s stick connected with Fleury’s pad before McBain’s shot. The Wild (4-for-4) have yet to lose a challenge they’ve initiated this season.

Late in the second, the Wild had a few close calls, with the rebound from a Zuccarello shot bouncing through the crease and Matt Boldy hitting the post on the power play, which went 0-for-5 despite registering more than a third of their total shots with the man advantage; Utah was 1-for-3 after Guenther’s sixth goal during a four-game goal streak. The 18 shots against the Wild were a season low, and Hynes mentioned they allowed one Grade-A chance the entire game.

“Maybe these games where we won in the past this year we find a way to lose now,” said Zuccarello, who led the Wild with a season-high six shots. “There’s ups and downs in the season. We lost three in a row, but I don’t think we played that bad.”

The Wild, who went 1-4 on this homestand, don’t have much time to end this skid before the holiday break.

After playing the Jets (Jesper Wallstedt is scheduled to start in net), they’ll host the Blackhawks on Monday before a three-day layoff.

In the meantime, a gut check awaits the Wild; they get to decide if it’s a gut punch, too.

“This is the joy of an 82-game season,” Foligno said. “You’re going to have some losses where you just scratch your head. Did we deserve better? Yeah, for sure. But a loss is a loss. You gotta soak it and you gotta get ready for tomorrow and maybe that’s the best thing. We got tomorrow just to go right back at it, just stay positive.

“We got two games left before a little mental reset. Tomorrow could be a good character win, and that’s what we gotta look forward to now. But, yeah, it’s frustrating.”