Game over " WILD 4, CANUCKS 2

The Vancouver Canucks continued Sunday to look like a last-place team, which is where they will soon find themselves unless they find their game.

Their latest mess was a 4-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild that featured a first-minute goal against and another fruitless night for their power play.

The loss was Vancouver's fourth straight and sixth in the last seven. As a result, they now share the Northwest Division lead with Minnesota but the Wild are seeded ahead of them based on more victories - 13 to Vancouver's 11. The Canucks have won three of their last 12.

The Canucks, who were sitting here waiting while the Wild played Saturday night in Nashville, could not do anything with the obvious 'rest' angle.

"We've had situations like that in the past," Canuck head coach Alain Vigneault said before the game. "Teams just go out and play. That's what they're going to do and that's what we're going to do."

Unfortunately for Vigneault, the Wild did it much better.

Vigneault finally lost patience with his unproductive group in the second period and began juggling all his lines other than the Sedin twins with Alex Burrows. Mason Raymond went back to left wing and Chris Higgins to centre. Jordan Schroeder moved up a line and Max Lapierre returned to his usual fourth-line spot.

Vigneault even put Jason Garrison on the first-unit power play. That didn't work either as the power play went 0-for-4 and is now on an 0-for20 nosedive. Where have you gone Ryan Kesler, Sami Salo and Christian Ehrhoff?

The new forward combos brought the Canucks back from a 3-0 deficit to 3-2 before Zach Parise, with his second, tucked the back breaker behind Cory Schneider after Henrik Sedin had made it 3-2 just 1: 02 in the final period.

Trailing 2-0 after one period, the Canucks promptly fell behind 3-0 at 4: 12 of the second after two early penalties to Garrison and Raymond, the latter for tripping Jonas Brodin on an icing call. The Canucks' penalty killers couldn't get the job done and Jared Spurgeon was able to one-time Ryan Suter's feed under Schneider's right pad.

Chris Higgins, who had Vancouver's best chance in the first period, finally put his side on the board when his bad angle shot beat Niklas Backstrom moments after Zack Kassian crashed the net and created some havoc.

The first period began disastrously for the Canucks, who allowed a first-period, first-minute goal to Parise and the misery continued on from there. Parise was open off the rush after Raymond lost a neutral zone draw, Jared Spurgeon beat Alex Edler along the boards, fed Mikko Koivu, who fed Parise for a one-timer as Jannik Hansen was late covering.

The Canucks had back-to-back power plays just past the midpoint of the first but came up empty again.

Minnesota made it 2-0 before the end of the first as rookie Jason Zucker had a virtual tap-in after Dan Hamhuis lost his stick and then seemed to lose his bearings after accepting David Booth's stick in an attempt to defend.

The opening period featured some decent emotion as Burrows tried to stir it up with Koivu, resulting in a giant scrum. Even the mild-mannered Edler was involved and was assessed a roughing penalty. On the next shift, Tom Sestito and Mike Rupp dropped the mitts in a heavyweight bout.

ICE CHIPS: The Canucks' lone healthy scratch Sunday was defenceman Cam Barker as Keith Ballard returned from his charley horse after missing just one game ... The Wild scratched defenceman Tom Gilbert (ill) and forwards Mikael Granlund and Pierre-Marc Bouchard. Granlund, the Wild's first pick (ninth overall) in the 2010 entry draft, has one goal in 19 games.

NEXT GAME

Tuesday

vs. Columbus Blue Jackets

4 p.m. at Nationwide Arena

SNET/TEAM 1040

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