Instant Analysis: Wild fall 2-1 in a shootout against Ottawa

The Wild opened the game with the first goal but eventually lost 2-1 in the shootout against the Ottawa Senators.

The Wild looked like a much better team than their previous 8-3 loss but ended up with another loss which was their fourth straight as the Wild fall to 5-8-3 on the season. Here are two takeaways from the game.

The eye test showed that Brock Faber and Marco Rossi were the two best players for the Wild tonight and the analytics backed it up. Faber led the Wild in Game-score and Rossi was second.

Rossi was also second on the wild in expected goals behind Matt Boldy and scored the only goal for the Wild after Faber's point shot that he tipped in.

Before the season the Wild knew they needed to get production out of their young guys along with good defensive play and that is exactly what both Rossi and Faber have provided the Wild with. 

Faber is top ten in the NHL in Goals Above Replacement and Wins Above Replacement among NHL defensemen and Rossi picked up his sixth goal of the year which ranks tied with Leo Carson for second in the NHL for Rookies. 

Today, the Wild's young guns continued to play well which put the Wild in the position for success. 

Just under a week ago the Wild allowed five power-play goals to the Dallas Stars in a game where they allowed seven Stars special teams goals which resulted in an ugly 8-3 loss. 

The Wild had a hard practice the next day then flew to Stockholm, Sweden for the NHL Global Series. They put a heavy emphasis on the penalty kill in practice and changed a lot of things up. 

Today, a different structure helped the Wild kill off all four of the penalties they took which kept the Wild in the game. Unfortunately the Wild ended up losing 2-1 in a shootout to the Ottawa Senators.

"Certainly we have to continue to do that," Wild head coach Dean Evason told the media on the penalty kill. "As we talked about before, they are as disappointed as we all are that the puck has been going in the net."