If it's true good teams find ugly ways to win, the Wild's one awesome team.
If you thought Saturday's finish against St. Louis was ugly and didn't catch tonight, the Wild brought it to a new level in the third period.
The Wild built 3-0 and 4-1 lead in the second, but allowed Arizona to turn into a game with an unforced error of sorts by Jared Spurgeon with nine seconds left in the second.
Max Domi, impressive all night, made it 4-2 and you knew things would get tense.
Nate Prosser, Matt Dumba and Jonas Brodin took minor penalties and the Wild managed a too many men penalty on a power play. The Wild should consider itself lucky the refs caught Steve Downie and Domi hooking the Wild into turnovers in the Wild end twice late to negate power plays and potential point-blank chances on Devan Dubnyk.
Michael Stone made it 4-3 with 4:48 left, but the Wild held on to improve to 3-0 this season. It's one of five unbeaten teams heading into what is bound to be a tough game Friday night in L.A. The Kings will be desperate and the Wild's legs could be mush after killing so much in the second half of the game. But the good news is the Wild's penalty kill, which had allowed three goals in the first two games, went 7 for 7. And, it scored a shortie.
Tonight, Dubnyk (25 saves) got his 100th win, Zach Parise scored a goal (his league-leading fifth goal and third on the power play) and assist to extend his point streak against Arizona to 12 games, Thomas Vanek scored his 300th career goal for real this time, Mikko Koivu scored his 10th career shorthanded goal (four off Wes Walz's team record and his first in almost four years) and Mikael Granlund scored a gorgeous winning goal 22 seconds after Anthony Duclair made it 4-1. Yes, the winning goal because the Wild nearly melted down late.
"Most of two periods looked a lot like the way that we should be playing the game," Yeo said. "It's nice that we're 3-0, but we're still short of playing a full 60-minute game so far."