Wild notes: Mikko Koivu remains a big player in goal production

ST. LOUIS – When the Wild has scored lately, there's been little surprise who's been behind the celebration.

Wingers Nino Niederreiter, Mikael Granlund and Jason Zucker were behind 12 of the team's past 17 goals after the Wild outlasted the Avalanche 3-2 in a shootout Friday at Xcel Energy Center.

But someone else has also been heavily involved in the attack — just not as a finisher.

Mikko Koivu has been the architect.

"He has great vision," Niederreiter said. "He's a great passer, and I would say [I'm] fortunate to play with him right now. He seems to find everyone, and obviously found me a few times now."

Koivu toted a five-game assist streak into Saturday's game against the Blues, a span in which he set up seven goals. Most of his helpers have come on the power play, a situation that seems to highlight Koivu's heads-up awareness to find the open stick. Before facing the Blues, the Wild had converted eight of its past 18 power plays and Koivu registered an assist on six of those tallies.

"If you keep getting chances, if you keep getting that pressure toward their net, that's a good sign," Koivu said. "I believe it's going to go in sooner or later."

And the value of both contributions only seems to get underscored when the Wild racks up points like it has the past week.

"Just overall his game is starting to come around," coach Bruce Boudreau said. "He's been a good player in this league for many years, so there's no reason for him to think as our leader that he's not taking this little run we've had and he's been the guy spearheading it."

Much of Niederreiter's success during his goal streak has come while burying passes and loose pucks in or by the crease, but he extended the run to six games Friday with an impressive one-timer of a Koivu feed from the right faceoff circle.

"Obviously when I get a setup like that, you have a good chance to put it in," Niederreiter said.

Crashing the net is still a reliable strategy for Niederreiter, who effectively uses his 6-2 frame to withstand the pressure from the opposition while hunting for goals. But diversifying his skill set is no doubt an encouraging sign for being a consistent scorer.

The Wild's shootout win over the Avalanche was the team's 10th one-goal game finish, which was the second-most in the Western Conference. Its largest margin of victory entering Saturday was three goals (four times), while the widest deficit was two goals (five times).