Good win for the Wild tonight at Florida, taking advantage of a team returning home after a long road trip and taking a 4-1 victory to end its three-game road trip with a 2-1 record.

The team returned to Minnesota after the game for a brief pit stop to play the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday before heading to Dallas on Thanksgiving for a Friday divisional battle – the first of a road-home back-to-back that finishes Saturday against St. Louis at Xcel Energy Center.

Jason Zucker scored two goals, Nino Niederreiter one, Zach Parise an empty-netter and Mikko Koivu had one of his best games of the season with two assists. Also, Niklas Backstrom, an outing after blowing a 3-0 lead in the third period to Winnipeg (eventual OT win), rebounded by making some huge stops in a 16 for 16 third to cap a 29-save effort.

Backstrom improved to 6-0-1 all-time against the Panthers and 4-0 in Florida. He improved to 24-3-4 all-time in the first start after being chased and 20-1-2 since March 26, 2008.

Coach Mike Yeo felt Backstrom was dialed in right from the start, as well as his team, which he said brought real focus and an impressive battle level.

"Our guys put a lot into this trip," Yeo said.

Yeo tweaked his lines tonight, keeping his first line intact, but then putting Thomas Vanek and Zucker with Koivu, Niederreiter with Charlie Coyle and Erik Haula and Justin Fontaine with Kyle Brodziak and Ryan Carter.

Koivu and Zucker was dangerous from the start, with two great Koivu forechecks leading to two great Zucker goals. The first one, Koivu took the puck from Jimmy Hayes. The second one, coming after Florida cut the Minnesota lead to 2-1, came after Koivu and Zucker forechecked the heck out of Erik Gudbranson after a Nate Prosser dump-in.

Gudbranson's outlet hit Koivu, who slyly backhanded the puck to Zucker, who tiptoed the line and scored a top-shelf backhander against the grain off the post and under the bar.

Pretty goal, and Zucker of course credited Vanek and Koivu after. Zucker had a career-high nine shots, although he said, "I don't know who was counting them."

I'll likely write Zucker for Wednesday's paper and how he has embraced everything Yeo has thrown at him, especially the penalty kill. Yeo and Koivu had high praise for Zucker after the game, and not so much about the goals and points, but the work ethic that is emblematic often by just how often the guy hustles down the ice to beat out an icing. That of course allows tired guys to get off the ice and avoids D-zone faceoffs.

"I just try to put my head down and skate as fast as I can and hope the [linesman] maybe misses a judgment here or there," Zucker said.

A taste of the praise from Koivu: "His work ethic right now is another step of wherever he's been. I think he's playing his best hockey – not just the points and goals, but overall. If he keeps doing that, he's going to be a great player, a big future from him."

Zucker, who like Colorado earlier in the year stopped a potential comeback with that second-period goal, is now tied with Parise for second on the team with eight goals. Niederreiter is first with 10 and he scored an awesome backhand, top shelf breakaway goal in the first for his second winning goal of the season.

All that summer powerskating Niederreiter does in Portland, Oregon, paid off on that goal, but he said he won't get overconfident and ripped himself for missing the net on three shots and being robbed in the third by Roberto Luongo.

Nick Bjugstad said of the Wild, "They were all over (us). They were on top of pucks and they were supporting each other. We just couldn't find a way to get the offense going, which is tough. That's a good team, we've got to play them physical and play them tougher than we did.

"They've got a lot of skilled players, a lot of fast players so we knew what was coming. We watched video on them and they were no different than any other team. They were ready to play so it was disappointing."

Luongo said, "They're a well-instructed team. They're patient and they wait for the other team to make mistakes and they've got some good forwards."

Said Panthers coach Gerard Gallant, "We had a 'C' performance tonight and it's not good enough. We didn't compete hard enough, we got outworked in the first two periods so it's disappointing.

"We weren't good as a group tonight. We had 20 guys that didn't compete hard enough and I think you saw a team over there that was hungry to play tonight. … If we're going to win hockey games we've got to outwork teams. We can't get outworked like we did tonight. It wasn't the skill of their team that beat us, it was the work ethic that beat us and that's disappointing."

That's it for me. Yeo was deciding on the flight whether or not to practice the team Tuesday. It's either practice Tuesday or practice on Thanksgiving before flying to Dallas.

If they practice, Rachel Blount will practice. Either way, I'll have a story in Wednesday's paper. Rachel is covering the game Wednesday, so follow her on Twitter at @blountstrib. Barring news, you'll next here from me Friday in Dallas.