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Wild coach Yeo to players: Don’t feel sorry for me

Mike Yeo

Minnesota Wild head coach Mike Yeo watches from the bench during the first period of an NHL hockey game against the Dallas Stars in St. Paul, Minn., Saturday, Oct. 12, 2013. (AP Photo/Ann Heisenfelt)

AP

The Minnesota Wild have lost six straight games. That by itself is a bad, but not terrible thing for the team. The real problem is that with more than half the season in the books, the Wild can’t be happy with where they are right now.

They’re four games behind Phoenix in the battle for the second Wild Card spot despite the fact that the Coyotes have played in three fewer contests. That’s a significant gap for the Wild to overcome in a season where they were expected to not only to make the playoffs, but go on a decent run once they got there.

So naturally it’s led to speculation about Wild coach Mike Yeo’s job security, especially given that this is the final campaign of his contract. He’s aware of that and so are his players, so he decided to talk to them about it on Wednesday.

“‘I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me,’” Yeo recounted to the StarTribune. “‘What I want is for you guys to know I still believe in this group and you’re going to see that I’m still going to come in here and I’m going to coach not to try to save my job, I’m going to coach to try to give us a chance to get things going, get back on track and get back in the playoff race and keep building toward our ultimate goal.’”

Even still, captain Mikko Koivu felt the need to stick up for the bench boss yesterday.

The Wild will face the basement-dwelling Sabres tonight, minus Buffalo’s leading scorer, Cody Hodgson. It will be particularly demoralizing if they lose this one.

Follow @RyanDadoun