NASHVILLE, Tenn. _ Both coaches spent Thursday morning discussing how tight the standings are.
Predators coach Peter Laviolette just laughed when he talked about how little "wiggle room" there was, and Wild coach Bruce Boudreau noted something crazy yet accurate: If the Philadelphia Flyers, who have won 10 straight games, loses their next game, they could theoretically drop to fifth in the Metropolitan Division.
"In this league there's no room for letups," Boudreau said.
Boudreau's point was the Wild can't rest on their laurels just because things have gone well lately.
Thursday night, despite being severely outplayed the final two periods, the Wild rode three first-period goals to the finish line thanks yet again to another brilliant Devan Dubnyk performance during a 5-2 win at Bridgestone Arena.
Dubnyk made 34 saves to improve his point streak to a career-best 10 games (8-0-2). The Wild won its season-best sixth consecutive game, third in a row on the road and improved to 8-1-3 in its past 12 games overall.
Jonas Brodin, Charlie Coyle and Eric Staal scored first-period goals (two off Nino Niederreiter assists) and Staal and Mikael Granlund added late empty-netters. But after the first, the Wild suddenly became allergic to shooting despite Pekka Rinne's leaky display in the first 20 minutes.
The Wild were outshot 36-17, 22-9 in the final 40 minutes (including the empty-netters).
Boudreau, who sarcastically thanked a reporter Thursday morning for reminding him the Wild hadn't scored a power-play goal in eight games despite the winning, didn't have to wait long into Thursday's game for that streak to end.
The Wild snapped an 0-for-18 drought with Brodin's top-corner goal through a Niederreiter screen and after a Mikael Granlund feed. Brodin has 13 points in 29 games. His career-high is 19 points in 79 games, and he had seven points in 68 games last season.
Ryan Ellis tied the score with a perfectly-place shot through Viktor Arvidsson's screen, but the Wild had a monster final couple minutes.
It scored twice in the final 1:23 of the first period with Coyle and Staal scoring 29 seconds apart. It could have been more because Zach Parise missed the net on a breakaway before the flurry and Jason Pominville fired one over a gaping net from point-blank range in the final seconds.
Niederreiter had the primary assist on both Coyle's 10th goal and Staal's eighth. The Coyle goal, coming in his 300th game, came off Niederreiter's rebound after he flew up into the zone off the wall. The Staal helper came after Niederreiter got a puck deep, then outhustled Ellis behind the net. After a brief puck battle, Niederreiter came away with the puck and fed Staal in front. The goal allowed by Rinne wasn't one of his finest.
Niederreiter has 12 points in the past 12 games.
It was a good end to the period, but the Wild had a lousy second period.
Outshot 13-3, the Wild spent the majority of the second running around its zone. But Dubnyk was able to at least allow the team to escape by only giving up one Mike Fisher power-play goal. James Neal hit Fisher for a backdoor slam dunk 30 seconds into Mikko Koivu's tripping minor.
Before Fisher cut the deficit to 3-2, Pominville, Parise and Coyle all had cracks to extend the Wild lead to 4-1. The Coyle chance came after another terrific setup from Niederreiter, but Matt Irwin did a great job tying up a spinning Coyle's stick, then Filip Forsberg blocked Coyle's shot to save a goal.
Tyler Graovac and Coyle also clanked iron in the game.
