ST. PAUL, Minn. — In the midst of a winless homestand, all the Wild needed to do Thursday night was win one measly period.
Instead, after entering the third period tied, the Wild got absolutely dominated by the Pittsburgh Penguins to once again disappoint the frustrated home crowd during what has been a miserable start to this 2025-26 campaign.
The Wild’s latest dropped decision, this one by a 4-1 score, means the Wild have now won three of their first 12 games (3-6-3), are 0-2-2 on this six-game homestand and are losers of five in a row (0-3-2) with one win in their past nine (1-5-3). They are now 1-3-2 at home with no regulation victories. It’s why they were booed off the ice by what was left of the Grand Casino Arena crowd.
“First period was great. We did what we should do. And then (in the) second period started drifting away a little bit, and we talked about it,” said goalie Filip Gustavsson, who is 2-6-1. “Win one period, and that’s it. And they got the first goal there, and then we kind of fell apart a little bit.”
The Penguins improved to 6-0-2 in their past eight after Bryan Rust and Ben Kindel scored 61 seconds apart in the third period to snap a 1-1 tie.
Kirill Kaprizov, who showed his frustration after Anthony Mantha’s empty-net goal by shooting the puck against the boards and then removing his number from the board that listed media requests following the game, scored the lone goal for Minnesota.
“For whatever reason, it’s just mellow and vanilla right now,” said Marcus Foligno, who doesn’t have a point in 11 games. “It’s not good enough with full 60. There’s spurts. Yeah, there’s some great looks and there’s some good things, but that’s not our hockey. We check well. Sometimes we seem to, for whatever reason, let the foot off the gas pedal at certain times that come back to bite us.”
The Wild host the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday night in the fifth game of this six-game homestand.
Hynes hits the Wild’s pride
Coach John Hynes, in the third year of a four-year contract, was as perturbed as we’ve seen him as the Wild coach.
He took issue with one reporter calling the team fragile and another questioning if the Wild still can play the same north-south, hard-checking style they’ve always played.
“If you look at tonight’s game, skating and playing with pace is not a style,” Hynes said. “Competitive level on the puck is not a style. Digging in on the faceoff circle is not a style. It’s what is required to win night in and night out. It’s the willingness to do those things regularly. That’s what it comes down to.”
Hynes said, “It’s about doing the right things. It’s about having some toughness to you and digging in, understanding when we’re in those situations that they matter. It’s not about being fragile, it’s about digging in and competing. If there’s a 50-50 puck, you want the puck or you don’t want the puck. You got to outcompete them. In the faceoff circle, I think we won (two) faceoffs on special teams, right?
“It’s not all the center, it’s 50-50. There were a lot of, even on the power play, there were a lot of 50-50 puck battles off the faceoff that we didn’t come up with. So we can talk about being fragile, but why don’t we get a little bit tougher? Why don’t we get a little bit harder and more consistent? And if you do that, then you’re going to give yourself a chance to win. But fragile is different when it comes down to skating and puck battles and assignments, when we know we have to do them. That’s different. There’s no reason to be fragile on that. You need to dig in.”
Wild’s power play goes scoreless
The Wild gave up a power-play goal in the third period and went 0 for 4 on the power play with three shots on goal, including two scoreless ones in the first period with a chance to extend their lead.
“I thought the power play obviously starts in the faceoff circle,” Hynes said. “I think we won one on the power play. And tonight, I thought we got out-competed, and their penalty kill out-competed our power play. It was puck battles, keeping pucks alive, shooting the puck, we were in and out.
“Starts in the faceoff circle. When our power play’s at its best, it’s relentless on the puck, it’s recoveries, it’s a shot mentality. Lots of times we start in the offensive zone and we can stay there and put the penalty kill under heat and tonight we didn’t have that.”
Third period disastrous
After a strong first period for the Wild in which they jumped out to a 1-0 lead and held a 13-6 shot lead, the Wild lost control of the game during a soft, slow second period.
But in the third, with the Penguins starting to hem the Wild into their zone, Matt Boldy, who has one goal in the past eight games, threw an errant pass for an icing. The Wild lost the draw, and seconds later, Jonas Brodin didn’t box out Rust for the go-ahead goal.
“We ice it, but then we get dominated in the faceoff circle the second half of the game,” Hynes said. “Then we have an opportunity to box out and we don’t get the job done, and it winds up in the back of the net.”
Another point for Ryan Shea as Bryan Rust taps it in! pic.twitter.com/87rgypzCsQ
— SportsNet Pittsburgh (@SNPittsburgh) October 31, 2025
Less than a minute later, fourth-liner Tyler Pitlick took an elbowing penalty 100 feet from his net. It took 13 seconds for the league-worst penalty kill to give up a goal on Pittsburgh’s only power play of the game. The Wild, who finished 30th in the NHL on the penalty kill the past two years, have given up 10 goals on 25 chances this year (60 percent).
“It’s getting worse,” Gustavsson said. “We’ve got to figure something out.”
Ben Kindel continues to impress with his third goal of the season! pic.twitter.com/d36whHZ6Hw
— SportsNet Pittsburgh (@SNPittsburgh) October 31, 2025
Malkin’s goal waived off
Evgeni Malkin, Kaprizov’s offseason training partner, has turned back time this season.
The 39-year-old, 2004 second-overall pick, perhaps in the final year of his career, entered Thursday’s game ranked second in the NHL with 13 assists and tied for fourth with 16 points. Not long after Kaprizov scored in the first period, Marcus Foligno couldn’t handle a hot puck sent to the front by Ryan Shea.
The puck bounced off Foligno’s stick and right to Malkin in the slot. He spun and whipped a shot past Gustavsson.
But after conferencing, referees Garrett Rank and Gord Dwyer ruled that former Wild Justin Brazeau interfered with Gustavsson. The Pens challenged, feeling that Wild defenseman Jake Middleton was the one who bumped Gustavsson. After a review, the NHL Situation Room in Toronto upheld the ref’s decision. The Wild earned a power play for the incorrect challenge but couldn’t extend the lead to 2-0.
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