The Wild spent 60 minutes Sunday afternoon with the team's part-time skating and skills instructor, Andy Ness, trying to work out the kinks that have led to four consecutive losses and back-to-back shutouts.
Nashville shut out the Wild 3-0 Saturday night, and less than 12 hours after returning home the players were back in skates at Mariucci Arena, where an extra goal on the ice provided as many puck-handling and shooting opportunities as possible.
The Wild (22-15-8) has scored only three goals during its losing streak and has averaged just 1.67 non-empty-net goals in the past 15 games.
"We haven't had a practice like this in quite a while, and so I think it was a good change of pace," Wild coach Mike Yeo said.
"There's not a kind of game plan or sort of mental trick of trying to trick the guys into feeling confident. We know the one way to feel confident is to work for it and to earn it, and we've done that in the past."
Veteran forward Thomas Vanek said he isn't too concerned about the Wild's skid.
"We believe and we know that we're a good team, but we're going through a stretch right now where too many of us are pressing and trying to do the right things and trying to score," Vanek said. "It was good to just touch the puck a little bit and do some fun little drills and kind of get the positive attitude back [Sunday]."
Reilly goes back to Iowa
Rookie defenseman and former Gophers standout Mike Reilly was reassigned to Iowa of the American Hockey League on Sunday morning after playing 10-plus minutes Saturday.
