Wild recover to defeat Coyotes

ST. PAUL, Minn.-- Nino Niederreiter scored two power-play goals, including the tiebreaker with 7:06 left in the third period, and the Minnesota Wild defeated the Arizona Coyotes 4-3 at Xcel Energy Center on Thursday.
"I feel like as a group our power play has been working really well," Niederreiter said. "We are jumping on loose pucks and trying to shoot pucks more often. That is a key that has helped us be successful."

Niederreiter has five goals in five games and 11 points in 12 games, including three points Thursday.
WATCH: All Coyotes vs. Wild highlights
Minnesota (29-10-5) is 18-2-1 in its past 21 games and has won 10 of its past 12 at home. The Wild, who lost 4-3 to the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday and blew a 3-1 lead Thursday, have lost consecutive games in regulation once this season.
"If you lose one and you get right back ... I mean, I don't classify losing one as a losing streak, but you certainly like being able to bounce back every night that you lost a game," Minnesota coach Bruce Boudreau said. "It's not going to happen all the time, but you'd certainly like to make an effort of it."
Wild goalie Devan Dubnyk made 20 saves. He is 15-2-0 with 36 goals allowed in his past 17 starts.
Chris Stewart gave Minnesota a 3-1 lead on a breakaway at 16:31 of the second period, but Arizona scored twice in 30 seconds to tie the game. Jakob Chychrun made it 3-2 at 16:54, and Jamie McGinn scored at 17:24.
"We were engaged in that game," Arizona coach Dave Tippett said. "That was a hard game, especially with a hard back-to-back. We had a lot of guys play very hard. We could have used a couple more saves and take a couple of mistakes out of our game. But we're looking for an effort part of it, and that's the first step right now."
Arizona (13-26-6) lost its fourth straight. The Coyotes are 2-12-1 in their past 15 games and 0-6-1 in the past seven road games. Louis Domingue made 21 saves.
"It was a good response game by our team," McGinn said. "We didn't get the result but we'll take the positives out of it and continue to move forward. It's not going to turn over night, but at least the effort was there and the heart was there and we'll take it one step at a time."
Eric Staal scored at 4:39 of the first period to give Minnesota a 1-0 lead. Staal has a Wild-leading 16 goals and 40 points; he scored 39 points in 83 games last season with the Carolina Hurricanes and New York Rangers.
Brendan Perlini scored with a wrist-shot high over Dubnyk's glove at 11:42 to make it 1-1. Niederreiter scored on the power play at 13:37 for a 2-1 lead.

Goal of the game

Wild forward Mikael Granlund passed the puck to Niederreiter, who redirected it toward the net for the game-winning goal.

Save of the game

With Arizona on a power play, Dubnyk stopped a slap shot by Radim Vrbata at 2:37 of the third period.

Highlight of the game

Stewart deked Domingue before backhanding the goal, his 10th of the season.
"It was a [heck] of a pass by [Pominville] there to get me on a breakaway," Stewart said. "And that's a move I've been doing my whole life since junior, so kind of had it there."

Unsung performance of the game

Jason Pominville led Stewart for his goal in the second period, one of his three assists.
"Tonight's one of those nights where things were working," Pominville said, "and felt good with the puck and you're able to make some plays, and obviously we scored on them."

They said it

"It's tough, we're in a tough spot right now, I think, and I think everyone knows we're playing for each other. We want to do this together, we want to get out of this together. I think as long as we keep showing that intensity and desperation that we did tonight we'll be able to find goals sooner than later." -- Coyotes defenseman Jakob Chychrun
"It was a huge win for us. We came out hard. We knew they were going to come out hard. They are still a very good team. They are not where they want to be in the standings. We have to be way sharper than we were today. It wasn't our strongest game. We have to find a way to be better." -- Wild forward Nino Niederreiter

Need to know

Arizona sent forward Anthony Duclair to Tucson of the American Hockey League before the game. "Anthony is a good young player," Coyotes general manager John Chayka said in a statement. "Unfortunately he has struggled this season. We felt this was a good time to send him to Tucson to work on a few things and hopefully regain his scoring touch. We hope to have him rejoin our team soon." The move opened a spot for forward Ryan White, who returned after missing 11 games with a lower-body injury. White had three hits playing 9:54.

What's next

Wild: Host the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday (9 p.m. ET; FS-N, PRIME, NHL.TV)
Coyotes: Host the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday (8 p.m. ET; SUN, FS-A+, NHL.TV)