Niederreiter, Suter help Wild send Panthers to fourth straight loss

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Nino Niederreiter scored two goals and had an assist for the Minnesota Wild in a 5-1 win against the Florida Panthers at Xcel Energy Center on Thursday.

Zach Parise had a goal and an assist, Ryan Suter had three assists, and Devan Dubnyk made 30 saves for Minnesota (17-12-2), which has allowed two goals or fewer in four of its past five games.
The Wild have outscored their opponents 12-2 in their past two games. They defeated the Montreal Canadiens 7-1 on Tuesday.
WATCH: [All Panthers vs. Wild highlights]
"A lot of times in hockey a team scores 7, 8 goals [and] they get one the next game and the next day you're saying, 'Geez, I wish we had saved some for that day,'" Minnesota coach Bruce Boudreau said. "So to go back-to-back with more than two goals, and to me, more importantly, to allow under two goals in two games, is really a feather in our cap."

Denis Malgin scored, and James Reimer made 21 saves for the Panthers (11-13-6), who have lost four in a row (0-3-1).
"I feel that we come into the game with great intentions to [play with pride and passion] and we just let it slip away," Florida defenseman Aaron Ekblad said. "We're a few mistakes here and there from being right in this game until the very end so I don't know what needs to change, but we'll figure it out at some point. We need to."
Malgin scored on a rebound at 2:20 of the first period to give the Panthers a 1-0 lead.
Niederreiter tied it 1-1 with a one-timer at 15:22, extending his goal streak to three games.
"I think for me, personally, probably confidence is obviously a big thing," Niederreiter said. "Staying on [the right wing] for quite some time for now, that's definitely helped my game a lot."
Niederreiter gave the Wild a 2-1 lead at 11:54 of the second period.
Eric Staal made it 3-1, scoring off a backhand pass from Mikael Granlund at 15:29. It was Granlund's 300th NHL point.
Parise pushed the lead to 4-1 at 1:02 of the third period, and Jonas Brodin made it 5-1 at 3:51.
"We're having fun," Parise said. "They're buzzing, we're moving our feet, we're talking all the time and we're getting the results right now."

They said it

"[Minnesota's] best players were better than our best players. I thought that [Aleksander Barkov's] line looked slow all game, they didn't have great legs, they looked like they had heavy legs. Sometimes you want them to play through it and you think they're going to figure it out, and they just never did. … Disappointing loss, especially the last 10, 15 minutes. Even when you're down, the message is play to the buzzer and play with pride. I thought some guys did and I didn't think some guys did." -- Panthers coach Bob Boughner
"When you win two games like that it obviously feels good. I think there's some things we can tighten up. Every game you're going to have little lapses where they're going to come and string together a few good shifts. But it's how we hold up. [Dubnyk] came up huge, and that's big for us. We just turned the tide over with a few good shifts in our end. It pays off." -- Wild forward Charlie Coyle

Need to know

Florida has not won at Minnesota since a 3-2 shootout win March 9, 2010 (0-6-1). … Panthers forward Anthony Greco was minus-3 and had two shots on goal in 9:30 in his NHL debut. … Wild forward Jordan Greenway left in the third period with an apparent injury. … Parise extended his point streak to three games (two goals, four assists). … Granlund has nine points (one goal, eight assists) in his past seven games. … It was the third time Minnesota has scored at least 12 goals in a two-game span. It scored 14 goals April 10-11, 2009, and 12 goals Jan. 12-14, 2017.

What's next

Panthers: Host the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; CBC, SN1, CITY, FS-F, NHL.TV)
Wild:Host the Calgary Flames on Saturday (1:30 p.m. ET; FS-N, FS-WI, SNW, NHL.TV)