Wild wins a nail-biter over Philadelphia on Zucker's late goal

PHILADELPHIA – Kicking trash cans, slamming doors, telling players they're "embarrassing" … mild-mannered Chuck Fletcher would probably never do what Flyers counterpart Ron Hextall reportedly did Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden.

"I usually let the coaches do that," joked Fletcher, the Wild general manager, from the Wells Fargo Arena press box a night after Hextall lit into the struggling Flyers after an awful effort at the Rangers.

Coach Mike Yeo didn't pull a Hextall on Thursday. He had every right to tear into his players during the second intermission for continually throwing pucks away, but instead, Yeo calmly told his group to forget the first 40 minutes and go win a road game there for the taking.

In other words, make a play.

Jason Zucker and Ryan Suter did just that. Responding to a tying goal minutes before, Suter's goalmouth pass to a wide-open Zucker stunned the Flyers with 45.4 seconds left as the Wild took a 3-2 victory for its fourth victory in a row.

"We all realized we weren't playing our game, we weren't on top of it, and there's going to be nights like that. But you've got to fight through it," goalie Darcy Kuemper said after being rewarded for a season-high 37-save performance. "Guys stepped up."

Zucker's goal — his first in 11 games — was a marvelous answer to Claude Giroux's tying power-play goal with 3:30 left. Kuemper had denied the Flyers' star captain six previous times, but Giroux took advantage of breaking Jared Spurgeon's plastic shot blocker on his left skate.

"As soon as it hit, I felt it break and I tried to get it off, but Zucks and Suts saved me," Spurgeon said.

Less than three minutes later, Thomas Vanek slipped a pass through Wayne Simmond's legs to Suter. Suter inched in and snapped a shot that deflected wide. But Charlie Coyle, who had two shots, six hits and was plus-2, beat Andy MacDonald to the puck and got it back to Suter, who quickly fed Zucker. The snakebit right wing slam-dunked the puck past Ray Emery, who had no chance.

Zucker, who also had no points in eight games, said the feeling was instant "relief."

"Guys like that, you need them to score big goals at big times, and that was certainly a good one," Yeo said of Zucker.

It was a big win for the Wild, which opened a three-game road trip and played the final 18:50 without captain Mikko Koivu. He never left the bench, but Yeo said afterward Koivu was sick. Yeo doesn't think it's the mumps filtering through the team because Koivu doesn't have swollen glands.

The win was well-deserved for Kuemper, who made some ridiculous saves and held the Wild in a game it was outshot 14-6 through one period, 27-13 through two.

"Coming on the road into a building with a real hungry team, I felt like I was going to have to be good," he said.

Yeo said Thursday morning the Wild needed to start scoring three goals a game on the road. Interestingly, it took all three to win and almost an entire game to get them — this after Yeo felt the Wild was "playing not to lose" for the first 40 minutes.

"But I liked the way our guys came out in the third period," Yeo said, with his team firing 16 shots. "We really got after it."