SUNRISE, Fla. _ Thirteen hours after voicing concern over his team's play lately, Bruce Boudreau took a different, more cajoling tack.
Despite a shoddy loss in Tampa the night before, the Wild coach awoke in sunny south Florida on Friday morning and said, "We're still first place in the whole Western Conference, so it's not like the world is falling."
That was the same message he delivered to his team regarding its "mini-slump."
"Don't get down," Boudreau told them hours before the Wild didn't look close to a team that was playing for the second time in 24 hours during a come-from-behind 7-4 victory over the Florida Panthers.
With the Wild oozing energy and their forecheck humming during a one-sided third period and 44-shot game, Zach Parise scored the winning goal with 5 minutes, 7 seconds left to break a 4-4 tie. Parise pounced on a Jonas Brodin shot that stopped short in the blue paint. Mikael Granlund and Charlie Coyle later added empty-netters.
The win came after Boudreau proved he wasn't kidding around by pulling starter Darcy Kuemper in a 3-3 game to start the third period.
Facing yet another desperate opponent fighting for their playoff lives, the Wild ended their two-game losing streak against a Panthers team that is 1-6-1 in its past eight games and hasn't won in regulation since Feb. 20. The Wild moved three points up on Chicago, which lost a second consecutive game, heading into Sunday morning's showdown on NBC at the United Center.
Trailing 2-1 after one period, the Wild worked tediously for half the second period to climb back into the game. Eric Staal and Jason Pominville scored 2:01 apart to give the Wild a 3-2 lead, but it took 61 seconds for often-erratic Kuemper to surrender a terrific tying goal.
Ageless Jaromir Jagr circled the net and skated into the faceoff circle to the left of Kuemper before centering a puck to the goalmouth that banked in off a crossed-up Kuemper.
Boudreau let Kuemper finish the period, but that's all the coach needed to see. For the second straight start, Boudreau pulled Kuemper, this time to start the third period.
Devan Dubnyk had a forgetful start to the period. Dubnyk's puck-playing mishap behind the net on a dump-in led to Aleksander Barkov's goal into a wide-open net 2:57 into the third, but only 2:27 later, Staal tied the score at 4-4 by potting Marco Scandella's rebound.
Dubnyk made 11 saves to match his career-high with 36 wins.
After five goals in their previous four games, the Wild certainly had more flow and scoring chances than in recent memory. Boudreau reunited Nino Niederreiter-Staal-Coyle, and Coyle had his best game in some time. Martin Hanzal centered Parise and Pominville.
Boudreau said before the game, "Believe me, I hate moving the lines around as much as we're moving them right now."
After giving up the first goal in six of the previous seven games, Boudreau badly wanted the Wild to stop playing catch-up Friday.
It seemed Jason Zucker supplied the Wild with just what the doctor ordered when he tipped Brodin's point shot for his 21st goal of the season and a 1-0 Wild lead.
But Hanzal took a tripping minor, and the wheels fell off at least in the final 5:45 of the period.
Thursday, Tampa Bay scored six seconds into its first power play. Friday, Florida scored seven seconds into its first when Jonathan Marchessault scored his 20th for the tying goal. Kuemper, who had been controlling his rebounds perfectly to that point, had a shot ricochet off him and into defenseman Ryan Suter, who accidentally put the puck into his own net.
Less than four minutes later, Mark Pysyk made it 2-1.
But with the Wild grinding in the second, Staal forechecked defenseman Aaron Ekblad off a puck and Nino Niederreiter fed Staal in front for his 10th 20-goal season.
With the Wild continuing to pressure, they crashed the net for a mad scramble. Nobody could corral the puck and get it over a fallen James Reimer until Pominville wisely fired high above a maze of bodies for his 11th goal and a short-lived 3-2 Wild lead.
