Wild players keep looking for answers after Winter Classic breakdown

Breathing the frigid air was a challenge, and the aftermath of the second period felt even cooler.

"I've never been that cold in my life," Wild winger Mats Zuccarello said. "Down 6-2, it was not a good feeling."

The Wild experienced an historic Winter Classic, and now the team has to deal with the fallout: A season-worst five-game losing streak after sputtering 6-4 to St. Louis on Saturday night at Target Field.

"We've got to find a way to correct our game here real quickly," coach Dean Evason said.

While the Wild's meltdown on the ice played out like its other struggles in this skid, the circumstances were entirely different.

In front of a sellout crowd of 38,619, the Wild and Blues faced off in the NHL's chilliest outdoor game with the temperature at puck drop a frosty minus-6 degrees.

Kirill Kaprizov had a turtleneck peeking out from under his jersey. Jordan Greenway was bundled up to his nose, and Ryan Hartman — like some of his teammates — had his ears covered.

"It was cold," said defenseman Jon Merrill, whose mustache turned icy. "The puck was bouncing everywhere. It was a little difficult as far as that's concerned, but everyone's playing under the same conditions."

This was the Wild's first game in 12 days and although St. Louis also recently had a week-plus break in its schedule, the Blues did get one game in before the Winter Classic and definitely had the crisper start.

A Kaprizov goal wrapped the first period with a 1-1 tie, a misnomer considering St. Louis dominated possession, but the scoreboard soon caught up to the action when the Blues racked up five goals in the second to lead 6-2. That's the most by a team in a single period in NHL outdoor history.

"We weren't responsible offensively or defensively," Hartman said.

What happened next is becoming a familiar scene — a too-little, too-late rally that exuded the urgency that probably would have been more helpful earlier in the game.

Like in the 7-4 loss at Dallas on Dec. 20, the Wild had its goalie on the bench for most of the final 10 minutes and delivered its second goal of the period at 6-on-5.

"We shouldn't be pulling our goalie with 10 minutes left in the third period," Evason said. "That's not something we want to do."

Kaapo Kahkonen was the goalie replaced for an extra attacker after he relieved Cam Talbot to start the third period. Talbot exited the game because of a lower-body injury and not because of the lopsided score.

"We wouldn't have taken him out of that hockey game," Evason said. "He's a battler. He's a competitive guy. We don't take him out of that game because he's still going to give us a chance to come back.

"He would've gone back in there if he could."

Already missing captain Jared Spurgeon (lower-body injury), center Joel Eriksson Ek (upper-body injury) and defenseman Jonas Brodin (COVID-19), the Wild has been inundated with adversity lately.

And with game postponements because of COVID-19 issues cluttering its calendar, the opportunities to bounce back are few and far between right now.

But with this rut festering and the Wild's spot at the top of the Central Division gone, the search for solutions continues.

"There's a lot of things that are going against us right now: Injuries, the schedule," winger Marcus Foligno said. "But we got to stay with it. There's one thing that's a positive out of this. We're rested, and we should have a lot of energy going forward."