Lessons learned lift Wild to victory

One night after giving up eight goals in Dallas, Minnesota played intense hockey to edge Phoenix.

By MICHAEL RUSSO, Star Tribune

Last update: December 28, 2007 - 12:30 AM

GLENDALE, ARIZ. - It didn't take long Thursday morning to realize the Wild intended to rebound after its five-goal loss 24 hours earlier in Dallas.

Following a 30-minute team meeting in which work ethic and defense were the main themes, every player was on the ice with a businesslike demeanor. No laughing, no messing around. Just focus.

A few hours later, the Wild rode its power play and magnificent goaltending to walk out of the same arena with a 3-2 victory over the Phoenix Coyotes.

Eric Belanger, Mark Parrish and Brian Rolston scored power-play goals and the Coyotes again couldn't solve Niklas Backstrom, who made 46 saves. Remember, Backstrom made a career-high 47 saves in his last start against Detroit.

"That's the great thing about this game," Parrish said. "You get a chance to come back right away and exorcise the demons. In Dallas, that third period was terrible and the floodgates opened.

"But we talked this morning. We wanted to take the lessons learned, move forward and get good feelings back in this locker room."

It was the Wild's sixth consecutive victory over Phoenix. Backstrom has been in net for each of them, although coach Jacques Lemaire, Backstrom and teammate after teammate felt the Wild played "stingy" defense Thursday.

"How many shots they put up? Forty-eight?" Lemaire said. "I would doubt that. It's not the same guys that are in Minnesota that count shots because they would end up probably with 20. But [Backstrom] was good. I don't want to take anything off his game."

Said Backstrom, "They had a lot of shots, but we played pretty solid defense out there. We tried to keep them outside and we succeeded pretty good at that. The big thing is we got great help from our forwards on the backcheck."

The victory came against a Coyotes team that has a league-low four home victories.

"Not the best feeling flying last night and this morning. Lots of long faces," said Belanger, who had three points for his fifth multi-point game. "But we redeemed ourselves."

With the Wild on its heels in the second period and the score tied at 1-1, Brent Burns, who had two assists, made a strong play at the blue line to get the puck to Belanger to gain the Coyotes' end on a power play.

Parrish cut through the middle and Belanger hit him for a breakaway and Parrish's 200th career goal, his first since Nov. 15.

It came on a sweet move, a pure goal-scorer's move. Parrish deked Ilya Bryzgalov to the right, then cut left and popped it inside the post under Bryzgalov's right arm.

"Nice play by Belanger sending me in there all by myself," Parrish said. "Usually when I have a lot of time to think about what I'm going to do, I'm good at messing those up. I looked up and didn't see the ref signal it in. I screamed, 'Don't try to take that one away from me.'

"I know it didn't make the mesh move that much, but I knew it went in."

In the third, Rolston scored his 13th off a long bomb that deflected off Coyotes defenseman Nick Boynton and by Parrish, who was also parked in front on Belanger's first-period goal.