The Wild started this season with virtually the same team that ended the 2022-23 season with 46 victories and 103 points, the fourth-best regular season finish in franchise history.

So, with his team riding a four-game losing streak and owner of only three victories in 10 games (3-5-2), coach Dean Evason was asked if he has been surprised by the team’s start.

“Yeah, a hundred percent,” he said. “We should be better. We will be better. And it will start tomorrow night.”

That’s when the Wild are host to the New York Rangers, 8-2-0 and riding a six-game win streak into Saturday’s 7 p.m. puck drop at Xcel Energy Center.

After a long practice Friday at TRIA Rink, Evason expressed optimism that his team wouldn’t start Saturday’s game the way it did against the New Jersey Devils on Thursday, a 5-3 loss in which the Wild fell behind 3-0 early in the second period. Evason was so angry with the latest in a series of poor starts that he began his postgame comments with, “I thought the game started at 7 o’clock, not 7:30 or 7:35.”

By late Friday morning, the coach had lost little of his edge.

“Obviously, none of us are happy. The players aren’t happy, so it’s not just the coaching staff, or management,” Evason said. “The players are pissed off, too. So, hopefully they’re pissed off tomorrow night when the puck’s dropped.”

To get the team back on track — Minnesota hasn’t won a game since beating Edmonton, 7-4, on Oct. 24 — all cards were on the table. Evason broke up his top three lines to start the second period on Thursday and the tinkering became more pronounced during a practice that approached 90 minutes on Friday.

After practice, it appeared the first line will be Kirill Kaprizov, Marco Rossi and Matt Boldy, which figured in all three of Wild’s goals on Thursday. Next was Ryan Hartman between Mats Zuccarello and Marcus Johansson, and Joel Eriksson Ek centering Pat Maroon and Marcus Foilgno.

“Sometimes it’s good to change things up. That’s normal. It’s not like the first time ever,” said Zuccarello, who has been playing with Kaprizov and Hartman for the better part of two seasons — and probably will again.

For now, though, the coaching staff is using the most immediate tool at its disposal to shock the team out of its funk — 1-4-3 since Oct. 19.

“When you’re not having success, you can’t just continually stay with what you’re doing. You’ve gotta try to do something to shake things up,” Evason said. “We’re not scoring goals, we’re not defending, so you’ve got to get some different looks.”

The fourth line remained intact, Connor Dewar centering Brandon Duhaime and Vinni Lettieri, but exactly how it all shakes out won’t be known until Saturday. Rookie defenseman Daemon Hunt will play, and a few players appear to have been taken off special teams units, which are among the NHL’s worst.

The kill ranks dead last with a 63.6 percent success rate and 12 goals-against. The power play ranks 19th with a 15.8 percent success rate, down from the 20.5 percent at the end of last season.

It appeared Friday that the No. 1 unit would be all forwards: Kaprizov, Boldly, Rossi, Johansson and Eriksson Ek. Noticeably absent from that top unit is Zuccarello, who leads the team with eight assists, and is tied for the team lead with 10 points, but also is a team-worst minus-6.

“Power play’s not having success, either, right?” Evason said. “You’ll see some new people on the penalty kill, too. You’ll see some different people.”

The Rangers, meanwhile, will come in on a tear, winners of six straight and atop the Metropolitan Division. The teams will meet again next week during a three-game trip against the Islanders, Rangers and Sabres.

“I honestly don’t think it matters who we play,” Zuccarello said. “Every team is good on any given day. So, it’s just about us coming together. It’s just playing with that calmness, the swag — make the plays that you normally make.

“It’s just so easy to get in your head and grip your stick and think, ‘Oh, my God, I don’t want to make mistakes,’ and it leads to making mistakes. I feel it, too. … We all know how to play. If you keep playing the right way, the same way, you’re going to get some bounces. The confidence comes, and we go from there.”