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Home | Sports | Minnesota Wild

Wild turns tables on Avalanche

Jeff Wheeler, Star Tribune

Mikko Koivu beat Colorado goaltender Chris Anderson on the first shot of the shootout.

New Wild captain Mikko Koivu scored the tying goal in the third period and notched the winner in the shootout.

By MICHAEL RUSSO, Star Tribune

Last update: October 22, 2009 - 3:22 PM

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WILD 3, COLORADO 2 (SO)

Up next: 7 p.m. Friday at St. Louis • TV: None (830-AM)

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Boos showered the ice during an aggravating second period Wednesday night, which is why in the end, it's amazing the Wild didn't shower in champagne.

The Wild, which made losing an art during its five-game road trip, actually figured out how to win a game for the first time in 15 days.

During his first night with a permanent "C" on his chest, captain Mikko Koivu set up one goal, scored the tying goal and registered the lone shootout goal during a 3-2 come-from-behind victory over the Western-Conference-leading Colorado Avalanche.

"I try to do that every night, though," Koivu said.

The 2-6 Wild avoided its first six-game regulation losing streak in franchise history when Koivu redirected Antti Miettinen's slap pass on a power play with 4 minutes, 51 seconds left in the third period.

With the Wild, 9-1-2 in its past 12 games against Colorado, itching for overtime, the game was delayed for 10 minutes when with five seconds left, David Jones shouldered the Wild's Nick Schultz through the glass at the scorer's table. Timekeeper Gordy Lee's knuckles were cut open as glass showered on top of him, but Lee never flinched.

"Impressive," Schultz said. "I didn't get any glass on me, so it must have been all over that poor guy."

After a scoreless overtime, Koivu opened the shootout by speeding in on goalie Craig Anderson with his head down. Anderson came out, sprawled left and Koivu whistled the puck underneath him.

In the third consecutive shootout between the Wild and Avs, and 13th one-goal game in the past 15 meetings at Xcel Energy Center, Niklas Backstrom held off Marek Svatos, Milan Hejduk and Wojtek Wolski, who had been 3-for-3 against Backstrom.

"It's a win. You can't hide, we needed it," said Backstrom, who made 16 of his 33 saves in a terribly played second period by his teammates to improve to 10-0-4 in his past 14 home decisions. "There's no way we could have taken a loss today, too.

"It's only one win. We've been sleeping at the beginning and now we have to get up the standings."

As good as the Wild played in the first period, the players had to go to the dressing room feeling lousy.

The Wild led 1-0. It should have led 3-0 or 4-0.

Brent Burns scored an early power-play goal, his first of the season, but the Wild couldn't beat Anderson again on three subsequent power plays despite spending the majority of the advantages in the Avalanche end.

The Wild outshot Colorado 13-6 in the first period but was outshot 18-4 in a one-sided, inefficient, sloppy second period. The Wild overskated pucks, coughed up pucks and missed wide-open nets.

After Derek Boogaard annihilated David Koci in "Boogey's" first fight since January, Darcy Tucker tied the score 1-1 early in the period after handcuffing Backstrom, who accidentally nudged the puck over the goal line himself with his glove.

With the Wild in scramble mode, Burns committed a second turnover on one shift by gift-wrapping a puck for rookie Matt Duchene. Moments later, Backstrom made a great right pad save on Cody McLeod but gave up defenseman Kyle Quincey's follow-up shot for the go-ahead goal.

"The second period, the game got away from us," Wild coach Todd Richards said. "We can't take a majority of a period off."

But the Wild figured out a way to win in the end.

"Hopefully this does give the guys confidence," Richards said. "We're 2-6. It's not where we want to be and we still have a lot of work ahead of us."

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