𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

CALGARY – The Wild were bound to lose in regulation sometime.

But it was how they played during a 4-1 loss to the Flames Thursday that was extremely disappointing – and uncharacteristic.

Coach John Hynes wasn’t happy — and he didn’t mince words.

“I think we got outplayed,” Hynes said. “The first time in a while I’ve seen us get outcompeted, outskated and out-executed. It just wasn’t a good night for us.”

The lowly Flames (ranked 31st in the NHL) were the better team in all areas — from 5-on-5 to special teams to goaltending. And that’s not a shot at Filip Gustavsson, who deserved a better effort in front of him. But this was Minnesota’s first regulation loss since Nov. 6 in Carolina — snapping a points streak of 12 games (10-0-2).

“Definitely not our best,” Zach Bogosian said. “I certainly don’t think it was our best. I thought we had chances to put the puck in the back of the net and unfortunately, I didn’t go our way, but certainly we know that certainly from an execution standpoint, it wasn’t our best.”

Going oh-fer on four power plays in the first period set the tone for the Wild. They just seemed off all night, from struggling to make passes to not getting through the neutral zone well. And the Flames struck first early in the second on a Jonathan Huberdeau goal, pouncing on a rebound. Yakov Trenin scored the only goal for the Wild on a crafty re-direction of a Zach Bogosian point shot in the second period. But the Wild went the first 14 minutes of the second without a shot on goal.

dink & in pic.twitter.com/5KrhKEDS0b

— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) December 5, 2025

“We had a lot of looks in the first, maybe if we scored one of those goals, it’d be a different game,” Trenin said. “But after that, we didn’t work hard enough to get rewarded with a goal. We tried east-west plays, kind of lazy flat game.”

Mats Zuccarello kept reiterating the looks the Wild came up with, noting it’d be a different story had they converted some. Dustin Wolf was very good in net for the Flames with 26 saves, with his best a robbery of Marcus Johansson in the second after a slick feed by Zuccarello.

“I don’t think we played up to our best standard,” Zuccarello said. “But I still think we created many chances early on. Second period… third period was so-so. But the first two we were creating enough chances to lead the game. Those go back and forth.”

OMG WOLFIE 🤯 pic.twitter.com/SBwl23Z9oe

— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) December 5, 2025

Hynes said there were “no excuses” for the effort. The Wild didn’t practice on Wednesday (they have no practices scheduled on this four-game, seven-day trip. While this game felt like an anomaly for Minnesota during the past month, it didn’t sit well with the staff. “It’s a daily thing, you’ve got to be ready to go and tonight we weren’t,” Hynes said. “In this league, every night is a hard night …

“It’s hard to win when your compete level and engagement and execution isn’t close to what it needs to be. And that was the case tonight.”

The Wild want to make sure this is just a one-off and doesn’t linger, with two games left on the road trip, including Saturday in Vancouver.

“You know, you don’t want them to happen, but these things happen,” Bogosian said, “Games like this happen. Learn from it, move on from it. You know, we have another two games left on this road trip, so we can’t hang our heads, get ready to work in Vancouver and you know, get back to our game, get back into a win column, and yeah, we’ve strung together some good hockey as of late. We’re confident in the group, and we can’t let one game throw us off course, but also recognize where we can be better and we certainly could have been better tonight.”

Matt Coronato sneaks behind and gives the @NHLFlames the lead! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/3FCGgxcMAd

— NHL (@NHL) December 5, 2025

Power(lesss) play

The Wild squandered a golden opportunity to take control of the game in the first period. They had four power plays, including a four-minute double minor late. But they mustered just six combined shots, and one legit scoring chance (a Kirill Kaprizov shot from the slot). It’s been a struggle for the man advantage lately after a hot start to the season.

Minnesota went 0 for 5 Thursday and is in a 1-for-16 funk. When they were rolling, they were making quick passes and creating movement. But now, it feels like they’re too slow, deliberate. The entries were an issue at times on Thursday, too. Hynes had switched up things with Brock Faber running the top unit and Zeev Buium and Jared Spurgeon on the second.

“We try to do the job when we go out there every time,” Zuccarello said. “We created a bunch of chances. (Dustin Wolf) made some key saves. It’s up to us, we’ve got to try to find a way to at least get one on those power plays. But he had some key saves at key moments. We’ve got to find a way.”

Hynes was more blunt on what was missing on the power play: “Face-off, execution, zone entries, puck battles, willingness to shoot. Slowed it down. You name it.”

Under the ‘Bus’

For the 12th straight game, the Wild went with their strict goalie rotation, even after Jesper Wallstedt’s shutout on Tuesday in Edmonton. But it’d be unfair to pin this loss on Gustavsson, who was hung out to dry too many times in this one. Gustavsson made some quality saves while his team was sleep-walking through a good number of shifts.

The best one was a stop on Blake Coleman on a partial breakaway early in the second period to keep it a 1-0 game. Had Gustavsson not stopped that, and the Flames scored twice in the matter of minutes, this could have gotten away from Minnesota much earlier.

The Flames broke it open with two goals in the third, with both of them a Flames player with a wide open look from either the slot or up close. The Matt Coronato goal, the Flames’ third, came after a centering pass by Morgan Frost just got over the stick of Matt Boldy, who appeared to apologize to Gustavsson after.

“Gus definitely made some big saves to keep us in it there right to the end,” Bogosian said.

Pickles ➡️ Zar = 🚨 pic.twitter.com/1lU1EL84GM

— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) December 5, 2025

Odds and ends

*Danila Yurov missed his second straight game to injury, but Hynes said his return is “imminent.” Yurov participated in Thursday’s morning skate, though not in rushes. Ryan Hartman had taken Yurov’s place on the top line with Mats Zuccarello and Kirill Kaprizov.

*Marco Rossi will not join the Wild for the rest of the road trip, and will take a little longer than they anticipated to return, Hynes said. Rossi had begun skating Monday, but it must not be going as well as planned. There was a thought Rossi might fly out to meet the team in the middle of the trip, but now Hynes said they’ll just see how the center is responding by the time they arrive home Tuesday.

*Tough shift by Ryan Hartman on the Flames goal in the second. First, Hartman fanned on a shot along the boards in the offensive zone, leading to a turnover. Then, Hartman appeared to lose track of the puck while on his knees in front, allowing Huberdeau to snag it and score. During the second period struggles of the team, Hynes switched up the top two lines and moved Hartman down to play with Mats Zuccarello and Marcus Johansson.

A backhand beauty from Huby 🔥 pic.twitter.com/l6YXGnoPlB

— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) December 5, 2025

*It seems like time to switch things up on the fourth line. The Liam Ohgren-Ben Jones-Tyler Pitlick line isn’t doing much out there. Jones has zero points in 43 career NHL games. What would it hurt to give rookie Hunter Haight a shot up the middle?

*We know Vladimir Tarasenko recently came back from injury, but he wasn’t very noticeable again on Thursday. On a team that is starving for secondary scoring, and is missing Marcus Foligno, Marco Rossi, the Wild could use more from the former Blues sniper, who has two goals in 21 games.