ST. PAUL, Minn. _ Hours after Bruce Boudreau said half kidding he wished the Wild never had to play the Anaheim Ducks because he doesn't like playing against guys he really likes, the Ducks showed there are no friends on the ice.
The Ducks at Xcel Energy Center ready to battle and ruin Hockey Day Minnesota's grand finale.
Instead, it was the Wild who ramped up the intensity in the second and third periods to storm back from a two-goal deficit to beat Boudreau's old team for the second time in 13 days, this time 5-3.
After Mikael Granlund and Marco Scandella each hit iron for close calls toward an attempted tying goal, Erik Haula, Ryan Suter and Jason Zucker scored three goals in a span of 1 minute, 59 seconds late in the third period.
Beginning with 6:21 left, Haula, who also scored in the first period, redirected Suter's slap pass from the high slot. Only 36 seconds later, Suter, after an odd-man rush, caught up to Nino Niederreiter's deflected shot in the left trapezoid behind the net and banked it in off goalie Jonathan Bernier. Not long after, Zucker buried his second of the night on a breakaway.
The Wild, who went 5-0-1 on a tough six-game stretch to begin January, improved to 2-1 on a homestand that ends Sunday night against Nashville.
Its point streak against the Western Conference improved to 15 games (13-0-2) as it improved to 19-2-1 since Dec. 4.
The Wild entered the game 1-5-1 in their previous seven home games against the Ducks with all six losses by a one-goal margin.
Haula gave the Wild a 1-0 lead only 2:35 into the game, but from that point, the Wild were smothered the rest of the period.
The Ducks came to play, came to hit and came to fight.
Kurtis Gabriel, fresh up from the Iowa farm team as Boudreau sent Tyler Graovac a message for his ho-hum play of late, was lured into a scraps with Nick Ritchie right after Gabriel turned the puck over in his own zone with a 1-0 lead.
Twelve seconds after the fight, the score was tied 1-1 when Stefan Noesen buried Cam Fowler's rebound.
The Ducks were in Minnesota's face the rest of the period, especially during a ghastly first of two successive power plays.
The Wild entered with the NHL's top-ranked home power play and tied for the fewest short-handed goals allowed in the league (one). Maybe the Wild was due for a doozy because after a terrible shift by the No. 1 unit, the No. 2 unit couldn't regain the momentum.
After Jared Spurgeon rimmed the puck around the wall, Mikael Granlund gathered the puck along the far boards and promptly coughed it up to Fowler. The speedy defenseman shot out of the zone like a rocket and beat Devan Dubnyk on the shorthanded breakaway for a 2-1 Ducks lead.
Twenty-four seconds later, after the Wild drew another power play, Ducks goalie John Gibson left the game hurt. He actually appeared to be injured seven minutes earlier when robbing Zach Parise's backhanded chance.
In came Jonathan Bernier, but the Wild couldn't capitalize with the tying goal for the rest of the first.
It was certainly a disappointing finish to a period that started well. Haula scored his second goal in three games when he stepped into Jason Pominville's drop pass. Pominville picked up his fourth assist in two games and Parise his first point in six.
Less than a minute into the second period, defenseman Marco Scandella took a holding penalty. On the ensuing penalty, Ryan Getzlaf circled the back of the net, threw a puck in the crease and Corey Perry gave the Ducks a two-goal lead.
But the Wild answered 2{ minutes later on Jason Zucker's 13th goal of the season and fourth in six games. Defenseman Sami Vatanen fanned on a pass and left the puck for Zucker to skate into between the circles. Zucker whipped over Bernier's blocker.
The Wild buzzed after that and started creating chance after chance as they gained momentum from Zucker's goal. But Charlie Coyle, in the midst of a tough series of games, doused that with a high-sticking penalty on the same shift he turned the puck over in his own end.
The Wild killed the penalty but couldn't get the tying goal by period's end. Granlund raised his arms like he did at one point, but he actually rang the crossbar. It was only eighth time this season the Wild trailed after two periods.
Early in the third, Scandella took a turn clanking the top of the left post for another close call.
