Wild wastes comeback at home against Anaheim, falls 5-4

It had to be tempting, but fans didn't boo Friday night, even with the Wild in a 3-nil hole.

One game after the Wild was sent vicious catcalls on a third-period power play despite a two-goal lead, the Wild turned those power-play jeers into cheers by mounting a stunning comeback on the posterior of two power-play goals 11 seconds apart.

But after the Wild rallied to take a one-goal lead in the third, Darcy Kuemper gave up two more goals, was yanked for the third time in four home starts and the Anaheim Ducks escaped to hand the Wild a painful 5-4 loss.

"I felt good," Kuemper insisted. "I didn't feel like I was fighting the puck at all. I didn't feel like I was giving up bad goals either. They had some good shots and beat me, but five goals isn't good enough."

The Ducks did beat Kuemper on good shots. Two came from Ryan Kesler, starting with a breakaway 91 seconds in when the Wild was caught unalert en route to a three-goal chasm.

But, at the time Kuemper was chased 8 minutes, 28 seconds into the third, he had faced only 18 shots. Even coach Mike Yeo, who tried his best to tap-dance around criticizing his young goalie after the game, said the Wild limited the Ducks to fewer than 10 scoring chances.

"Bottom line is if we score four goals, we should win," Yeo said. "We have to make sure that we're strong [with our goaltending] and we have to make sure that we're playing the right game in front of him, so we'll evaluate that carefully."

In his past four home starts, Kuemper is 1-2 with a 5.37 goals-against average and .755 save percentage.

"Mentally I'm fine right now," Kuemper said.

The Wild, 1-1-1 on the homestand with the New York Islanders coming Tuesday, lost for a fifth consecutive time at home to Anaheim. In a terrible first period, only fourth-liners Ryan Carter and Justin Fontaine had scoring chances and no first-, second- or third-liners had shots except Mikko Koivu.

"We were on our heels and we were watching," Yeo said. "Once we started to get a little bit ticked off, started to get a little bit nasty, we started to find our game."

With the Wild trailing 3-zip, Koivu and Zach Parise made folks forget the team's 7-for-78 power play. They scored 11 seconds apart, tying a team record for the fastest two power-play goals.

On a 5-on-3, Koivu banked a cross-crease pass off former teammate Clayton Stoner's skate, then Parise took a beautiful Mikael Granlund pass and beat Frederik Andersen through the legs.

With the crowd in a frenzy, the Wild motored the rest of the period, several times flirted with the tying goal and finally got it on Jonas Brodin's knuckler from way out.

But after Fontaine gave Minnesota a 4-3 lead with his first goal since Oct. 28 just 2:07 into the third, Tim Jackman, not exactly a goal scorer, answered 90 seconds later.

"Tough to give that up once guys worked so hard to get back to where we were," Kuemper said.

Less than five minutes later, Matt Beleskey buried the eventual winner.

"When the fans and the building is behind you, it's a good feeling as a player and we got some extra energy from it, but it just wasn't enough tonight from our part, not from them," said Koivu, a reference to how fans tried to urge players along a game after booing them.

The irony is two days after Parise angered some by noting how booing fans wouldn't have been pleased if the Wild had scored on the power play against the Canadiens but lost, the Wild did just that against the Ducks.

Still, the hope is the power-play goals serve as a confidence builder.

"They needed that," Yeo said. "Hopefully that's one little battle that we won that's going to help us going forward."