In their biggest game of the season, the Wild took a 1-0 lead on the Nashville Predators on Thursday at Bridgestone Arena, momentarily masking the fact that they had been outplayed for most of the game’s first 10 minutes.

Again, momentarily.

It took the Predators less than a minute to erase that deficit and take a lead they never relinquished in a 6-1 victory that kept Minnesota stalled six points out of the Western Conference’s eighth and final playoff spot pending a late game between Los Angeles and Vancouver.

If the Kings were to win that game, Minnesota would be eight points out with 22 regular-season games remaining.

Yakov Trenin and Cole Smith scored goals 8 seconds apart in the first period, and Juuse Saros stopped 33 of 34 shots as Nashville put eight points between themselves and their Central Division rival.

Connor Dewar scored for the Wild, who have lost consecutive games for the first time since Jan. 25-27, as well as all the progress they had made during a 7-1-1 run out of the all-star break.

Filip Forsberg, Roman Josi, Ryan O’Reilly and St. Paul’s Ryan McDonaugh also scored goals for Nashville, which has won seven in a row to solidify its playoff position, seven points ahead of ninth- and 10th-place Calgary and St. Louis.

The Wild play the Blues, a point ahead in the standings, on Saturday at Enterprise Center.

“Obviously, we wanted that one tonight. We want every one,” Wild forward Vinni Lettieri told Bally Sports North. “We’re just looking at the next game. We can’t look ahead, we can’t look at the standings. Staying in the present moment is the biggest thing for us.”

Forsberg’s power-play goal at 17:55 of the second period made it 3-1, and Roman Josi — who finished with three points — scored at even strength 1:32 into the third period to make it 4-1 Nashville, which has hovered in and around a playoff spot for most of the season. The teams play once more this season, March 10 in St. Paul.

Consecutive losses to Nashville and Anaheim dropped the Wild seven points out of a playoff spot heading into the all-star break, but after back-to-back road wins in Edmonton and Seattle last weekend, Minnesota was back within two points of both the West’s two wild card playoff spots.

Two losses later — Carolina beat Minnesota 3-2 at Xcel Energy Center on Tuesday — the Wild again find themselves in a deep hole.

Filip Gustavsson stopped 25 shots for Minnesota, keeping the Wild within spitting distance in a first period spent mostly in the Wild zone. Minnesota had a hard time getting the puck across the Predators’ blue line, and when they did, spent little time there.

The Wild opened the scoring on a rush when Brandon Duhaime threw a shot on net from the high slot that Saros couldn’t contain. Dewar followed, corralled the rebound and buried it for a 1-0 lead at 9:51.

But it didn’t last long.

The Predators quickly set up shop, again, in the Wild zone. Roman Josi took a pass at the point and skated across the circles, turning his back to protect the puck, before sending a backhanded pass to the crease. Trenin, camped behind Marco Rossi, beat Gustavsson to the puck and it was 1-1 at 10:40.

Nashville won the ensuing faceoff and threw the puck into the Wild zone. Declan Chisholm intercepted it between the circles but was picked by Smith, who skated around the defenseman to score at 10:48 a 2-1 lead.

Minnesota played a much stronger second period, but Saros made a pair of big saves on shots by Zach Bogosian and Joel Eriksson Ek, and the Predators finally scored on Forsberg’s power play goal with 2:05 left in the period. His wrist shot from atop the right circle was redirected by Jonas Brodin’s stick and past a sprawling Gustavsson for a 3-1 lead.

Briefly

Bogosian was playing his first game back from an upper body injury suffered Feb. 20 at Winnipeg.