In return of Parise and Scandella, Parise scores 2, Scandella the OT winner as Wild survives Jets scare

I joked on Twitter at the start of the third period that the Wild was "clinging" to a 3-0 … lead, and while I maybe didn't envision exactly what transpired in the third, that is exactly what I meant by the word, "clinging."

It wasn't that I felt the wild was playing poorly. But I have seen it so many times after teams get into penalty trouble:

The Wild, with a 3-0 stranglehold on the game and dominating 5-on-5 play against the Winnipeg Jets (the Jets didn't even have an even-strength shot on goal this game until 3 ½ minutes in the second period!), killed five penalties in the second.

Guys like Thomas Vanek and Jason Pominville played four shifts in the second, Charlie Coyle three. The momentum of the game completely turned because the Wild spent basically the entire period on the PK. The Jets were skating forward so to speak, the Wild backward.

So I didn't think it would be easy for the Wild to return to its first period play. I expected the Jets to push and the Wild to be on its heels, but of course, I didn't expect to see a 3-0 lead evaporate in a span of 4 minutes, 52 seconds on goals by Michael Frolik, Evander Kane and Andrew Ladd. It was the second time this season the Wild coughed up a three-goal lead in the third, but this time it didn't lose.

The last goal came at 10:47 of the period. The Wild survived the final 9:13, somehow, someway, got to overtime, got the 5-minute Zamboni dryscape to settle down and came out and scored 61 seconds in when Marco Scandella, fresh off the mumps, whistled his first career overtime winner for a 4-3 win.

Evening from the press box, where I was actually off tonight. Rachel Blount is busy to my right banging on the keyboard working on her game story, so I figured I'd help out and blog.

Player after player jumped to Backstrom's defense afterward, saying they were fluky goals.

"Three-nothing in the third period, there's no reason that game needs to go to overtime," said defenseman Keith Ballard, who played old-school hockey tonight, laying one of his typical hip checks on Adam Pardy and fighting Andrew Ladd after Ladd asked him to go following Ballard admittedly getting away with a couple cross-checks. "They scored three lucky goals. I mean, every single one of them went off one of our guys before it went in. We spent a little too much time in our end in the third and I think we got away from that constant pressure that we saw in the first of getting pucks deep and battling down there and then we get a line change and the next line's doing it, too. It was too much one and done in the third."

But, Scandella, who missed the previous two games with what the team thinks was the mumps, capped a 25-minute night with the winning goal. Scandella said he didn't get confirmation that he indeed had the mumps, but the team definitely thinks he does and vaccinated players, staff and broadcasters. Jonas Brodin is still out with the illness and was hit harder than Scandella, coach Mike Yeo said before the game.

Scandella said his jaw was very swollen. "It didn't look very pretty," he said, laughing, adding that he was depleted of any energy and only started skating for the first time in five days this morning.

"It feels great," Scandella said of his winner. "Rough third period. We didn't get the bounces that we wanted. Sometimes that hockey. They had momentum. They came hard. We bent, but we didn't break. Everyone was focused. No one was panicking. We played resilient."

Zach Parise returned from a concussion for the first time in six games and scored two goals – one Jason Pominville pass that ricocheted off Parise's leg, one Parise-to-Pominville intended flubbed pass that deflected in off Jets winger Blake Wheeler's skate. Parise three or four times flirted with his third career hat trick and first with the Wild, but he couldn't get it to go.

Parise said he felt pretty good, but "a couple times I probably had more time than I felt like I did and rushed a couple plays. But hopefully it will get better as I get into some more real practices and play some more games."

He said he lost his conditioning a bit: "It's always hard to replicate that game speed, even though it wasn't that long being out. These guys played five games and you lose that pretty quickly. You need to get a couple games to get back to normal speed."

On the game, Parise said, "Of course we were frustrated with the way we let them back in the game. Unfortunately, we gave them a point we shouldn't have. It was good for us to come back and win in overtime, but it wasn't the ideal thing to crawl back in there when we had a 3-0 lead."

Weird game, to say the least.

"I think we spent the entire second period killing and they spent the entire second period either on the power play or acting like idiots," Ballard said.

Defenseman Ryan Suter, the NHL's time on ice leader the past two seasons and leader again this season at 29 minutes, 13 seconds a game, still logged 28:24 Sunday despite being whistled for a career-high four minor penalties (eight penalty minutes).

The Wild killed all of Suter's minors and all eight Winnipeg power plays in the game, as I mentioned above.

"It was unbelievable. They called me for them, but our PK did a really good job stepping up," said Suter, unhappy with a few of the calls by referees Brad Watson and Justin St. Pierre.

The Wisconsin native added with a laugh, "Guys were joking that the Packer game was on in the penalty box. It wasn't. It was a tough night. I don't think I've had four penalties this year."

The Wild was very frustrated with Watson and St. Pierre all game and got into some barking matches throughout.

There is no doubt the refs' involvement in the game – whether you agree with the calls or not – affected the way the game evolved.

"You could feel things starting to slip," Yeo said. "Our PK was outstanding tonight but you never want to put yourself in that position because we've got other guys that we've basically lost in the game. That was not the recipe for success. We just lost the rhythm of the game through the second period and with that things came out in the third. In the end we found a way to win and that's all that matters."

On Scandella and Parise's returns, Yeo said, "We got two very important pieces back into the lineup tonight and both those guys had a huge impact on the game. From a defensive standpoint, Marco is such a big part of the way we want to play the game, taking away time and space, being in guys' faces and helping us with the execution. I thought he played a really strong game before he scored the overtime winner. That was the icing on cake. Zach, the way he came out in the first period, and it was tough to get him involved in the second, but whenever we needed a momentum shift or to help get things going the right way, he was the guy getting after it and playing the game the right way as well."

More on the game, Yeo said, "Listen, things happen, you can blame bounces, you can get frustrated with your play. But in the end the game is sitting right there for you. And I liked that we regrouped and went after it in overtime. I thought we got back on the attack and that's the way we have to play the game (Context from Russo, not a quote: Parise set up Mikko Koivu and Jared Spurgeon, but both swung and missed).

On Backstrom being pulled, Yeo said, "That was just momentum, that was not on him by any means. He was making some good saves. There were a couple tough bounces that were tough for any goalie. But I'd already burned my timeout and I felt they still had the momentum after that, and obviously they scored that goal. So you're looking for anything to do."

Kuemper made three saves for the winner one home game after Backstrom replaced him and got the win with 25 saves. Not often you see consecutive home wins where the starting goalie didn't get credit for either win. If I remember correctly, Backstrom's first three NHL wins were all in relief of Manny Fernandez – a first in NHL history.

More on Parise, Yeo said, "What I like about Zach, you see that end result but there are things leading up to that that are the reason he scores those goals. He doesn't take shortcuts. You talk about doing something before the game and you draw it up on the board, then you see that first goal go in because he does exacly what we're talking about. That's leadership."

On Nino Niederreiter's team-leading eighth goal, a highlight-reel goal where he took a Thomas Vanek pass in the high slot, weaved around Jacob Trouba and tucked a backhander from behind the goal line inside the post, Yeo said, "Good to get another one on the power play. "We want to have competition between the two groups. The last three games we've gotten power-play goals, they've all come on the back half of the power plays. That whole two minutes is important. That was a heck of a play. He's got to be a guy who just keeps getting to that area. He's so dangerous around the front of the net. The more times you get there the more times you get rewarded.

Odds and ends:

The Wild is 7-1 at home, outscoring opponents 32-16 here. The Wild is second in the NHL on the PK at 89.3 percent (50 for 56, 5 for 5 on 3-on-5s. The Wild killed three abbreviated two-man disadvantages tonight).

Parise has 35 multi-goal games now. Justin Fontaine has three assists in the past three games. Pominville now has 128 career multi-point games. Mikko Koivu won 18 of 28 draws. Since Oct. 30, he has won 131 of 210 (62.4 percent).

After the game, Justin Falk and Jordan Schroeder were reassigned to Iowa.

That's it for me. I'll talk to you after Monday's practice. The Wild's off Tuesday (I'm getting revaccinated for the mumps that day!!!) and Rachel is covering Wednesday's practice as I head to Philly.

Wild is 3-6 on the road and plays four of its next five on the road, including the Flyers-Lightning-Panthers trip coming up. The latter two games will be the team's father-son trip.