Through the eyes of opposing players, the transformation of the Minnesota Wild was plain to see. Last season, said one player who played Minnesota recently, they were very hard to play against.

“They were fast, aggressive. They were in your face,” he said.

That wasn’t the Wild team he saw recently during this rut that dropped Minnesota out of a playoff spot, costing coach Mike Yeo his job over the weekend. Now it is a team that is tentative, whose goal scorers are squeezing their sticks a little too tight, almost like they're waiting for something bad to happen.