Wild need to beef up scoring in tough road stretch

The Minnesota Wild are in the midst of a stretch of games where they'll lace up for seven of eight on the road. That's not good for a team that clearly plays much better in front of its home fans than in an opposing arena.

The road trip, against some tough opponents, started with back-to-back games out west this week. The Wild lost 2-1 to the Ducks, who lead the Pacific Division and have yet to lose in regulation on home ice. Then it was on to San Jose Thursday where the Wild lost 3-1. Both games, the Wild were down 2-0, had trouble scoring and didn't get on the board until the third period.

It won't get much easier coming up as the Wild will face the Avalanche, just ahead of the Wild in the standings, the Canucks and Metro Division-leading Pittsburgh. The Wild has already slipped in the standings slightly, in a Western Conference where you just can't afford to make too many mistakes. They're winless in their past five road games, going 0-4-1.

Get it together
I can see some bad trends developing here. The Wild may have some good chances, they may outshoot a team, they may have great goaltending from Josh Harding or Niklas Backstrom. But it all comes back to a problem they've known all too well: Scoring.

They just can't seem to punch in the goals when they need to, especially these past couple games when they've been down. Don't be careless with the puck, but don't sit there and wait for that perfect goal either. When you're playing from behind, you should be working extra hard to not only generate chances on the forecheck, but to get shots on net.

Garbage goals still count on the scoreboard. Unless it's against the rules like a puck that's kicked in or batted out of the air with a high stick, it doesn't matter how pretty a goal looks or doesn't look. I think the Wild must get too caught up with trying too hard or something. Even slight hesitations on shots often result in a defender blocking the attempt.

Sorry if this sounds like a broken record. But these scoring issues have spun like a broken record.

Surrounded by strong teams
As I already noted, the Western Conference is a tough one. For instance, the Jets and Predators are tied with 33 points in the Central's basement right now. That point tally would be good enough for third in the Metro Division in the East.

The West is stacked with good teams and talent, from the Blackhawks to the Ducks, Sharks, Avalanche and even the St. Louis Blues are impressive this year. With so much at stake, it's both cliche and very true that each point is important throughout the season. You never know what it will come down to at the end of the season.

I've heard that some have not taken the Wild seriously so far this season, because of a so-called easy schedule. Well, this is the portion of the schedule where you can see what a team is made of.

I hope it's made of some deeper scoring.