Power play scores twice, Vanek once as division-leading Wild get good team win

Mike Yeo began his postgame press scrum with a big smile: "Let's talk about the power play!"

Hey, two goals, and in ONE GAME!!! after none in all of October, it's safe to say the Wild scoring on the power play was a big, big relief. My tweet to announce the season's first power-play goal was apparently a popular one, as you can see here:

But the penalty kill got the Wild to that juncture, going 4 for 4 tonight, including an 86-second 5-on-3 disadvantage in a scoreless first.

The Wild, the best second-period team in the NHL (outscored opponents 17-5), then scored three times in the third to take a 4-1 win over the former North Stars.

Evening from the Xcel Energy Center press box. Be sure to read the power-play/Thomas Vanek-centric game story for some good quotes and numbers, but here we go with the blog:

The 7-3 Wild took over the top spot in the Central and is now 5-0 at home.

Yeo called this a good team win, and the Wild has been a pretty good team this season.

It has outshot all 10 opponents this season 350-229.

The Wild ranks first in the NHL in goals allowed (1.8) and shots allowed (22.9) per game and third in goals per game (3.4) and second in shots per game (35). Its penalty kill ranks fourth at 89.3 percent.

Tonight, the Wild got first goals of the season from Mikael Granlund, Matt Dumba and Vanek in the second. Granlund's came in his 100^th game, Dumba's represented his first career game-winning goal. And Vanek's represented the Wild snapping an 0 for 28 power-play drought this season.

Then, for good measure, Nino Niederreiter scored a power-play goal in the third. You can't contain the Wild's power play!

"I had a feeling when we got one, in that game, we would get more than one," Yeo said. "The way it's been going, it definitely relieves a burden, there's no question."

On the power play scoring twice, Parise said, "For everyone in here, it felt really good to get rewarded for doing some good things. I thought the last couple games it's been better. We're moving better. We weren't as stagnant. We went pretty dry for a couple of games where we weren't even getting chances. But the last couple games I thought it was better and to get one and then get another one, it feels good for us."

On Vanek scoring, Yeo said, "I was real happy for him. The way his game got better as the game went on, I was happy to see the way that he came out, especially in the second period. … I was never worried about him. What I like, there have been signs that he's starting to get comfortable, more familiar with our game. This is not going to be an overnight thing where he just comes in and he's completely familiar with the guys he's playing with and the game that we're playing. He's had chances. He's been creating some really big goals for us."

Yeo praised the job the blue line did, especially Ryan Suter and Marco Scandella, who have been so good. Scandella is an even or better in every game and he has 13 blocked shots in the past five. Jonas Brodin did a good job playing hurt, Yeo praised Nate Prosser, calling him a warrior, and he praised Dumba and Christian Folin for the way they managed the game tonight.

Remember, this is a banged up team playing without Jared Spurgeon, Matt Cooke, Ryan Carter and Keith Ballard, who is still sick.

By the way, read the notebook in Sunday's paper on startribune.com/wild because I have a Josh Harding update in there.

As you can tell from that quote, I'm doing a Zucker story for Monday. He has been so good. Second-most ice time among forwards tonight to only Mikko Koivu, who was good again and had an assist on the Vanek goal.

The Wild will take Sunday off.

Yeo said the Wild hasn't had a real practice in eight days with six games in nine nights.

"That practice on Monday is going to be real important," he said. "We have to be fresh to play the type of game that we want to play. We're a high-energy team. We're a very aggressive team. We want to go up and down the ice quickly and we want to pressure hard, so you need energy to play that kind of game. So that's why the energy level has kind of taken priority over practice time lately, but you can see some of the details have started to slip, you can see a little bit of the execution has started to slip, and that's normal. We have to manage that, but we have the day off, that'll be really important, that'll give us an opportunity to have a good practice on Monday and we just have to start making sure that we're ready for a tough test after that."

Wild shut down the star-studded Benn-Spezza-Seguin line tonight and held Dallas to 20 shots. Yeo said, "It's a team effort. That's what we pride ourselves in. When you're giving up a chance, you need Kuemps to play the way that he did. But we have to limit those chances and our guys take pride in that. Playing as a unit of five, that's our mentality. When we're on the attack, we want to play as a unit of five. When we're defending, everybody's got a job to do and there's a trust factor there and an ownership that you have to be there for your teammates. And our guys are doing a great job of that."