As the Wild spend the stretch run chasing playoff position that has eluded them since October, coach John Hynes has made it clear he doesn’t check in on the standings, and suggests his players don’t, either.

It’s wasted energy, he said. Better that players focus strictly on winning games.

For the several Wild players who have copped to ignoring that advice, and acknowledged keeping a daily eye on where Minnesota stands in the race for one of the final two Western Conference playoff spots, Friday was a good time to stop.

The news wasn’t good.

After rising to 10th place, and within two points of a playoff position, with back-to-back road wins at Edmonton and Seattle last weekend, the Wild have lost consecutive games for the first time since Jan.25- 27 and fallen a full eight points out of a postseason spot.

“You just put it behind you,” top-line winger Matt Boldy told traveling reporters Friday after a practice at the St. Louis Blues’ Enterprise Center. “Not our best game. Not what we wanted as a result. But you’ve got to keep winning games and get back on track.”

The Wild have an opportunity to leap the Blues in the standings in a 5 p.m. puck drop Saturday night.

The Wild had been playing good hockey since returning from the all-star break on Feb. 7, going 7-1-1 before a 3-2 loss to Carolina on Tuesday at Xcel Energy Center. They were competitive against a good Carolina team, but run out of the rink in a 6-1 loss Thursday at Nashville, a classic four-point game that has left Minnesota badly wounded, if not mortally, as it stared down the final 22 regular-season games.

Hynes said the Wild used Friday’s practice to work on areas of their game that abandoned them against the Predators. Among those would be getting stopping forechecks before they develop, getting the puck safely through the neutral zone and making better decisions with the puck.

Two of their 10 giveaways wound up in the back of the net, and it would have been worse if not for a few big saves by Filip Gustavsson.

Maybe the biggest issue, however, was a lack of what Hynes called Minnesota’s “competitive spirit” — an unwillingness, or inability, to get into the hard areas and win one-on-one battles at both ends of the ice.

“You’re not fixing that in practice,” Hynes told reporters Friday. “I think there are some structural things, some routes and things that weren’t as sharp as they need to be, but we talked about last night the competitiveness — the hard areas, to play as hard as you can in certain areas of the ice (in order) to win.

“Those are addressed individually, those are addressed in meetings. But you’re not going to accomplish that in practice.”

Shaw time?

Hynes said Freddy Gaudreau, a veteran forward who has struggled this season, is one of a few players who might not be available for Saturday’s game.

“There’s a couple, I don’t want to say game-time decisions, but probably some afternoon decisions,” Hynes told reporters.

Mason Shaw, a forward who played a career-high 59 games last season before blowing out his right knee on April 1, was signed to a two-way deal and immediately recalled on Feb. 15 but has yet to play an NHL game this season.

That could change Saturday, and maybe not just because of an injury.

“It could be for a little shakeup,” Hynes said. “Like I said, one of the things we know he does is bring an edge to his game and plays hard in the hard areas of the ice, and those are things you respect about him. So, I think that might be a consideration, as well.”

Briefly

Hynes said Marc-Andre Fleury will play in net Saturday, after which the staff will determine which goalie plays in Sunday’s game against San Jose in St. Paul.

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