Minnesota Wild's second periods need work, but everything else seems to be clicking

Check out my full gamer and notebook from the Wild's 3-0 victory against the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday at Xcel Energy Center.

And now for a bit more from the team because why not.

Coach Bruce Boudreau gave a lot of credit to goaltender Devan Dubnyk for shutting out Philadelphia back-to-back and giving the team a home-and-home series sweep.

"It tells us how good the goalie was," Boudreau said. "I thought this was a typical first game back from a road trip. We had a hard time finding our legs, I thought, the first two periods. I thought in the third period, there was a lot of character that took over. We knew that we didn't have a lot of energy tonight, but I thought they played really good in the third period."

Well, it's not exactly hard for the Wild's third period to shine when the team's second periods all season long have been pretty darn drab. Philadelphia coach Dave Hakstol said postgame he thought his team was unlucky to come out of the second period, where the Flyers outshot the Wild 17-7, empty handed.

Boudreau said he didn't know why the Wild seem to flounder in the middle period, but he's "going to have to figure that out."

Boudreau also praised the play of defensemen Gustav Olofsson, Matt Dumba and Jonas Brodin. Boudreau said the young Olofsson seems to be gaining confidence now that he's playing a bit more.

"I thought their gaps were tremendous," Boudreau said. "They were making players that were coming up the ice go East, West instead of North, South. They were eight feet away from each other. They could reach out and use their sticks so they couldn't get by them. I thought they were really good."

Winger Tyler Ennis didn't score Tuesday, but he had an abundance of opportunities and has been combining well on a line with Mikko Koivu and Mikael Granlund.

"There's some good chemistry there," Ennis said. "Granny and I are kind of similar creativity wise, offensive-wise. Mikko's been around so long, he's such a great player at both ends of the ice. It's definitely a fun line to be on. So many chances the past few games. That's the thing, you always want to get chances, and you know they're going to start going in soon."

You know whose chance did go in (kind of)? Dubnyk, when he assisted Jason Zucker's empty netter to end the game.

"Yeah, it took me a second to calculate it, and I realized that it came off my stick," Dubnyk said. "So I thought I'd get in on the celebration with him since he was standing there. That's about the only way I'm going to be getting points is on a half-rim around the boards that happens to hop over their guy."