By Michael Russo, Star Tribune (Minneapolis) –
DENVER — There were plenty of motivating factors Tuesday for the Wild: to enter the All-Star break inside the top eight in the West, to leap over the rival Colorado Avalanche, to end an 11-game road malaise.
But more importantly, coach Mike Yeo asked his team: “When’s the last time we played two good games in a row?”
Well, now.
Believe it or not Wild fans, your stumbling, tumbling, plunging favorite team is officially on a win streak — a foreign concept for a team that had plummeted from first in the NHL to outside the playoff bubble with 15 losses in 17 games.
But inside the Pepsi Center — a/k/a the Wild’s home away from home — the Wild controlled play from start to finish, defended well, spent most the night in the offensive zone and upended the Avalanche by a 3-2 score.
“The last two games, tonight especially, we really had that feeling back,” said center Kyle Brodziak, who had two assists. “It almost felt like there was no doubt we were going to win that game.”
One game after Chad Rau’s first NHL goal acted as the winner against Dallas, fellow minor league callup Carson McMillan’s second NHL goal broke a 2-2 tie 7 minutes, 44 seconds into the third period. The 200th pick in the 2007 draft stripped Shane O’Brien of the puck and tucked a breakaway goal between Jean-Sebastien Giguere’s legs after Brodziak screamed at him, “Take it, take it all the way,” on a 2-on-0.
“I was shocked,” McMillan said. “I didn’t know what I was doing until I was at the hash marks and even to the crease.”
Justin Falk also scored his first NHL goal, Dany Heatley his team-leading 15th and Niklas Backstrom shook off arguably two bad goals to win for the first time since Dec. 29 and allow less than three goals for the first time in eight starts.
The Wild, 9-1-2 in its past 12 at the Pepsi Center, enters the All-Star break with two consecutive wins for the first time since Dec. 8 and 10 (the last game of its seven-game win streak) and its first road win since Dec. 10.
“It’s like Yeosie said after the game, ‘it’s starting to come back,’” said Falk, who had an “eventful game” by also fighting Daniel Winnik. “We’re really working hard and figuring things out. It was a tough stretch there.”
Trailing 1-0 early, Falk and Heatley lifted the Wild to a 2-1 lead by the first intermission. Impressive, considering the Wild had scored 11 goals during the 11-game road winless streak and never more than one in a period.
On a well-executed power play after Nick Schultz saved the puck at the blue line, Falk picked a corner for his first NHL goal in 54 games.
“I had a couple close calls (for goals) throughout my NHL career and guys were like, ‘you don’t want an ugly one, you want a pretty one,’” Falk said.
In fact, it was Falk’s first professional power-play goal. As Houston’s coach, Yeo never used Falk on the power play. Tuesday’s occurrence was the “genius” of assistant coach Darryl Sydor, Yeo said.
“I was a little shocked when they called for me out there,” Falk said.
Backstrom gave up a soft tying goal to Chuck Kobasew in a Wild-dominated second, but 36 seconds after McMillan came out of the penalty box in the third, he scored. It came after he stopped his route to the bench on what looked like a bad line change by the Wild.
“I couldn’t be happier with the result,” said McMillan, 23.
Same for the Wild.
“When we play that way, we give ourselves a great chance to win,” Yeo said.
