ST. PAUL, Minn - On the night before Halloween, the Minnesota Wild gave its fans something to be afraid of. Another flat effort. Another chorus of boos and yet another loss on home ice. It is the fourth straight loss on home ice and seventh loss in their last eight games of the season.

The loss dropped the Wild to 3-6-3 record in October which is the worst October start in franchise history, by win percentage. The scariest part? This doesn’t feel like a slump. It feels like who they are.

These mistakes are the same every game. It seems like it is the same little things that good teams don't do that is costing the Wild. And the veterans, who were supposed to steady this team, look as lost as everyone else.

Wild captain Jared Spurgeon is a minus-12, Wild alternate Marcus Foligno is a minus-10 and has zero points and the other Wild alternate captain, and soon to be highest paid player in league history, Kirill Kaprizov is a minus-5 and erased his name off the whiteboard after the 4-1 loss so the media could not talk to him.

Oh and he's turning the puck over at a very high rate.

‘Doing The Wrong Things For The Right Reasons’: Hynes Wants Smarter Decisions From Kaprizov John Hynes plans to meet with Kirill Kaprizov to address turnovers, saying the winger’s competitiveness sometimes leads to risky decisions.

Out of the 22 players who have skated in a game through the first 12 games, Zach Bogosian is the only guy who has a positive plus-minus. He is injured and is in the press box. Good news is he just got his boot off his leg so progression is coming.

"Yeah. As I’ve said before too. I know that we got a group that cares, and right now we gotta help’em," Wild head coach John Hynes said after the game about the Veterans making the mistakes. "We gotta try help these guys get up and running and doing the right things and playing the games that we know that they can play. That’s something that we continue to do every day. Everyone gets disappointed but I don’t think discouragement or fragility or whatever you want to call it is the answer. We gotta dig in and we have to be better. We have to try help the players get to the games we know that they can get to."

The thing is, almost all these guys are locked up for multiple seasons. This is the core that Wild management believed in and so far the results aren't there. Last year they got off to a 16-4-4 record which was the best record in the NHL and somehow barely made the playoffs.

Last year the Wild's slogan was choose your hard. This year it is far from that. 

"Every year presents different challenges. You don’t pick off where you left off last year," Hynes said on where choosing your hard went. "There’s 4-5 months in between the seasons and there’s different dynamics to your team and then you come in and right now we haven’t found that regularly and that’s something we gotta do."

On Thursday the Wild started out the gates fast. They were the better team. Then in the second period the game switched. In the third they got outworked, outskated and outcompeted. Pittsburgh outshot the Wild 16-8 in the third and scored three goals.

“I don’t have an answer for you. I think it’s a lot of looking for someone else to do it. Some lines, I think there’s just a lot of disconnect," Foligno said on what changed. "For whatever reason, it’s just not we talk about boring hockey. We’re not even playing that style that we used to. It’s frustrating in that sense. We gotta better. We gotta be more around the puck. We got guys that are swinging and things like that. Like I said, that’s their game. They like speed. They like things where they can get a little bounce here or there. I mean it was just a lot of not a great five-man unit in the second period I think just led to you could feel coming almost.”

On the Penguins second goal of the game, Matt Boldy got the puck in the dzone and tried to pass one to Joel Eriksson Ek leaving the zone. He misfired and it goes down for icing. The Wild then lose the draw after the Penguins send out their big guns and Brodin gets boxed out by Bryan Rust who taps home an easy goal.

It is just the simple details that is just alarming. If they can't do these things then what reason should they give to fans that they will turn this around after their worst start in franchise history.

"Yeah I think when you look at that, it goes back to kind of what I said earlier, just with the execution. The execution on the play, and then we ice it, but then we get dominated in the faceoff circle the second half of the game. 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," Hynes said on the goal.

The Wild's penalty kill is the worst in the NHL and exactly 60%. We all know there isn't much hope when it comes to that improving. Only the Anaheim Ducks have a worse penalty kill in the last five seasons than the Wild.

Minnesota took one penalty against the Penguins on Thursday. It was an offensive zone penalty from Tyler Pitlick, a fourth line forward, and the Penguins scored 13 seconds into the man-advantage to take a 3-1 lead.

"It's kind of first shot they shoot on net there in the power play. Missed net, Malkin missed the net, the other guy, I think I saved the second one. It still goes out to the fourth guy. I don't know. Yeah, as you said, it's getting worse. We’ve got to figure something out," Filip Gustavsson said on the goal.

First Erik Karlsson missed the net, then Evgeni Malkin missed the net, Rust is stopped on a stuff attempt and then Ben Kindel scored on the fourth shot in four seconds.

It just seems so disconnected like Foligno said. I don't know where the choose your hard went. I get you have to come up with a new identity and slogan each year but it just is a little confusing. Considering the core is the same. Is it possible this is just a fragile team?

"Yeah, I think fragile is not a good word," Hynes said. "I think it comes down to consistency in our game. Like why did we get outskated? Why did we win a lot of faceoffs in the first period and then we didn't win any faceoffs in the second half? You know, typical little things. We lose the faceoff and then you have the box out. It's not about being fragile, 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."

The toughest part is this is all happening in the midst of a home stand that includes six straight games and then two on the road and then five more at home. Attendance has already been visibly down and if they continue to be booed off home ice night in and night out, this has the makings of a long season ahead.

“We gotta suck it up and just play the next game and yeah like I said, I don’t really have an answer for you guys. It’s more of just like we gotta do it," Foligno said. "Actions speak, so it’s more just it’s not even about gripping the stick at all. It’s actually just getting your head right for a period where it’s like you know what this is as a three guys on the line this is what we have to play tonight and this is how we’re going to do it for a full 60. For some reason, we’re letting the frustration creep in our game.”

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