WINNIPEG, Manitoba _ The Wild's comfy cushion in the Western Conference standings will provide the team with the luxury of lineup experimentation with three weeks until the trade deadline.
Tuesday night, coach Bruce Boudreau tried Charlie Coyle at center for the first time this season. The big forward was placed between Nino Niederreiter and Jason Pominville and the move instantly shook out the game's first three goals against the Winnipeg Jets
However, the Wild's top line played so poorly in the second period, Boudreau moved Coyle back to the right wing in the third period and the team was able to stave off a Jets comeback with a hold-on-for-dear-life 4-2 victory at MTS Centre.
After big problems with the long line change in the second period saw its 3-0 lead turn to 3-2 by the third, the Wild, behind Devan Dubnyk's 38 saves, were able to improve to 14-1-2 in their past 16 road games. The Wild, a league-best 18-6-5 on the road, completed a 3-1 road trip and returned home after the game to begin an eight-game homestand Wednesday night against sitting-and-waiting Chicago.
The Wild, who won 38 games last season, won their 35th game and moved six points up on Chicago with two games in hand.
In the first 23 minutes, 33 seconds of the game, Coyle picked up three assists, Pominville two goals and one assist and Niederreiter a goal. Pominville later assisted on Niederreiter's empty-net goal for a four-point night.
Coyle, who played center on and off for much of his Wild tenure, looked right at home in the middle of the ice. With one goal and 10 assists in his previous 18 games, Boudreau wanted to see what Coyle would look like moving from right wing to center.
"Do we need a winger, do we need a center, do we need a depth guy?" Boudreau wondered hours before the game. "We have to see if there's anything that we have to go out and get before March 1, and what better time to do it than in February?"
The result with Coyle in the middle was instant magic. The experimentation is the same reason the Wild has Alex Tuch up right now, although he eventually was dropped to the fourth line in the third period. If Tuch could do an adequate job, maybe the Wild doesn't need to acquire a winger. However, if Coyle can play center, maybe wing makes the most sense to see before the deadline since there are few enticing rental centers available.
Of course, the way the Wild second and third defense pairs played in the second period Tuesday, the Wild could even be in the market for a defenseman. Boudreau said before the game this is why the team wants to see how Mike Reilly and eventually Gustav Olofsson looks before March 1.
Midway through the period after Dubnyk bailed a couple teammates out for a couple a bad giveaways, Niederreiter disguised a wrist shot dreamily by toe-dragging the puck into a defender's skates. Coyle picked up the first assist after flying through center, Pominville the second after a stellar backcheck allowed him to steal the puck.
Then, with 40.2 seconds left in the period, Pominville scored his ninth goal after another Coyle setup.
The line connected again early in the second period when Coyle threw a goalmouth pass to Pominville and he buried his second goal for his 12th point in the past nine games and became the Wild's league-high 10th 10-goal scorer.
Coyle picked up his second three-assist game of the season and Pavelec would soon leave the game for Connor Hellebuyck with a lower-body injury.
But things took a turn afterward. Just three minutes later, after defensemen Marco Scandella and Matt Dumba got trapped on the ice with Eric Staal, Zucker and Tuch, Bryan Little scored on a rebound.
Dumba and Scandella's shift length was 1:52, while Staal was 2:04 and Zucker 1:29, meaning Zach Parise never hit it to ice.
Later in the period after the Jets began to dominate and at one point Jared Spurgeon swept a puck off a goal line to save a goal, Dubnyk stepped into two Dustin Byfuglien blasts after another poor Parise-Staal-Tuch shift with Reilly and Folin.
After a bad line change by the overextended forwards, Joel Armia beat Dubnyk from the left circle after Folin gave him the zone and screened Dubnyk.
The Wild had a chance to make it 4-2 early in the third after Mikael Granlund was awarded a penalty shot for Byfuglien shooting a loose stick at him, but Granlund couldn't convert.
