Vezina finalist, 36 saves to put Wild a win from advancing? Devan Dubnyk had a very good day

Mike Yeo said as far as good days go, Devan Dubnyk had a great one.

One year after being in the minors with the Canadiens, the Wild goalie was named Vezina Trophy finalist earlier today. Hours later, he made 36 saves to rebound from the worst loss of his Wild career by leading Minnesota to a 4-1, Game 5 victory and put his team on the brink of advancing to the second round.

Game 6 will be Sunday at 2 p.m.

Dubnyk said he found earlier today from Yeo and he took some time to reflect on this incredible year.

"It was a year ago today I was on the C squad in Montreal," Dubnyk said. "It's been a long road and I got a good chance to talk to some important people in my life today that supported me through the whole run."

How the heck did he put Wednesday's 6-1 loss behind him, a game he was pulled after allowing six goals on 17 shots? How the heck did teammate after teammate say that Dubnyk's positive attitude the past day was contagious and wore off on the group? How the heck did Yeo say the most impressive part of Dubnyk's response was his eagerness to get back out there tonight and rebound?

"It's easy," Dubnyk said. "Everything we've been through, the belief that we have as a group in here of how good of a team we are, there was just no doubt from anybody in here that we were going to come in and have a better hockey game. I always go back to the conversation I had with [Coyotes captain] Shane Doan and him just reminding me that when you're down or have a bad game, you need to remind yourself that that's not the person you are, that's not the player you are. You go back to when you have a 40-shot shutout, or 35 save, one-goal game, that's who you are as a person and a player, you just have remember that."

In the first period, the Blues took the game's first eight shots and took a 1-0 lead on Vladimir Tarasenko's power-play goal, his sixth goal on nine shots at that point in the series.

In a series where there had been no tying goals or lead changes, it had to be harrowing.

"We talked about more than anything before the game, if they score first, we score first, our game can't change," Yeo said. "I don't think we did that very well in Game 4, tonight that was a big factor for us, no one got down."

Finally, at the 11:06 mark, Marco Scandella registered the Wild's first shot of the game and it blew through Jake Allen's glove for a tie game. By the end of one, the Blues had a 12-3 shot advantage but had to be nervous with a 1-1 game.

In the second, Dubnyk was awesome, robbing Alex Steen twice, including a desperation, rolling, throw-the-leg-up, pad save after Jared Spurgeon pressured Steen and made the patient skilled forward pause his shot.

"I don't like being in that position very much," Dubnyk said. "Some guys are good at doing that. I'm not Dominik Hasek, so I'm usually not feeling good in that spot. You just throw everything at him."

"Obviously when you're on the bench your heart kind of sinks because you see the play develop and think it's in your net, think you're going to be trailing, all of a sudden you're going the other way on a rush, it's a big lift for your group," Yeo said.

Charlie Coyle, who scored the fourth goal tonight, raved about Dubnyk after the game and said the bench exploded with that save.

Not long after, Nino Niederreiter and Mikko Koivu scored on back-to-back shots 1:26 apart. Niederreiter's goal became his third career game-winning goal, a Wild playoff record.

The Wild dominated the last eight minutes of the second, but in the third, it was all St. Louis and Dubnyk stopped 19 of 19 shots.

On Sunday, Dubnyk said, "It's huge. We need to treat that game like that's our Game 7. You don't get very many opportunities to finish off a series and we've worked to put ourselves in that situations. But we've got to understand that coming back here in a Game 7's going to be a tough situation. It's a one game win or go home and we have an opportunity to avoid that situation, so we'll do the best we can and feed off our crowd."

Yeo said of Dubnyk, "We needed him to give us a chance to settle into the game a little bit. It seemed like we were a little bit jittery in terms of execution, missing some sticks, some passes that we could have executed a little better on, missing some nets in the offensive zone. He gave us that opportunity. We've beaten a lot of good teams, beaten them in different buildings, not every game the same. Got to find a way to play your game and do it well for 60 minutes."

Yeo said "Game 6 is obviously going to be a great challenge. We have not won anything yet. I think we're very aware that home ice has not been a huge advantage in this series. That's going to be a great challenge."

The Wild is 12-1-2 now in games after Dubnyk losses. Allen gave up more than two goals for the first time in 13 starts.

Chris Stewart, who was having a tough night and series before the midway point of the second, made a great play to get away from Zbynek Michalek to set up the Niederreiter goal. Yeo made a move early in the game to flip Niederreiter and a clearly-banged-up Jason Zucker and put Niederreiter on the Koivu-Stewart line. It paid off bigtime.

Where fell apart after Minny's first goal?
I don't know that it fell apart. I think they were opportunistic. First period until they scored their goal, that was the best we've played in the whole series. Played great. We kind of flattened out a little bit when they scored the goal and had all those chances in the second and missed those four chances there.

On Niederreiter goal:
We made a mistake on the second goal; we didn't get the puck deep. They got a faceoff and the d-man lost his stick. Jake didn't pick it up. That was kind of the turning point a little bit.

On Koivu goal:
The third goal's a fluke goal; what are you going to do?
But so many good things. We did so many good things today. We had a little bit of a lull. I didn't think we responded as hard as we could have maybe when they scored the first goal. That gave them a little bit of wind, but just did so many good things. You're disappointed for the guys. We'll rebound and get ready for the next game. If we bring a lot of the good things we did today into the next game, we've got a third game in a row to build on.

Opportunity to extend lead when 1-0:
We were playing so well. We just looked like it was a continuation of the last game, but I thought the air went out of the bag a little bit when they scored their first goal and we've got to probably look to respond a little bit different than that. We could have probably picked up Jake a little bit on that one. I thought we got a little bit flat.

WIld pack it in during third, not allow interior in period:
No, but it's our team. We kept coming. I don't know, what'd we have 19, 20 shots on goal? We get one early when we have all the chances, who knows. Game on, but it's natural to sit back a little bit. We were in their zone for most of the period.

The Wild is now 4 for 11 on the power play this series. Tonight snapped five consecutive Game 5 losses.

That's it for now. We know how the Wild usually play when it's in a terrific position. We'll see if it can avoid a letdown.