Wild rally with five straight goals to sink Senators

OTTAWA-- The Minnesota Wild scored five straight goals in a 6-4 win against the Ottawa Senators at Canadian Tire Centre on Tuesday.

Eric Staal scored twice, and Chris Stewart, Mikko Koivu, Jonas Brodin and Nate Prosser scored for the Wild (18-13-3), who trailed 3-1 in the second period. Alex Stalock made 28 saves.
The six goals matched the Wild season high. They scored two or fewer in their prior four games.
WATCH: [All Wild vs. Senators highlights]
Erik Karlsson scored twice, Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Derick Brassard scored, and Craig Anderson made 34 saves for the Senators (11-14-7), who had had won two in a row, including 3-0 against the Montreal Canadiens outdoors Saturday in the 2017 Scotiabank NHL100 Classic.

Koivu tied the game 3-3 with 55 seconds left in the second period. It was his first goal since Oct. 28, fifth of the season.
"When you go a long period of time without scoring, even if you get chances, it starts getting frustrating. If it didn't, I think you're in the wrong sport, wrong league," Koivu said. "So I felt good, like I said, but I've got to keep going."
Prosser gave Minnesota a 4-3 lead 1:48 into the third period, and Brodin made it 5-3 at 4:57.
"Once we were up 3-1, they came back strong at us," Karlsson said. "They made us work really hard. We got a little fatigued and we didn't make the best decisions. We still went into the third period with a 3-3 game and felt good about ourselves. Unfortunately, they kept coming and we couldn't really find the solution to stop them early enough and create our own stuff."

Stewart made it 3-2 at 10:19 of the second period when he beat Karlsson to the net and scored off a pass from behind the net by Joel Eriksson Ek.
Thirty-one seconds later, with the Senators shorthanded, Stalock stopped Nate Thompson and then Tom Pyatt on a second chance.
"It's a save you need to make," Stalock said. "Lucky enough, I kept it out of the net and gave a little life and we ended up getting two at the end of the period. It was huge."

Karlsson scored his second goal of the season at 2:08 of the first period to give the Senators a 1-0 lead. They took a 2-1 lead when Karlsson scored at 1:08 of the second period on the power play.
Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored for the second game in a row at 5:44 of the second when he took a pass from Tom Pyatt for his fifth goal of the season to make it 3-1.
Staal scored on the power play at 16:39 of the third period to make it 6-3, and Brassard scored with the Senators on the power play and with an extra attacker at 18:34 to make it 6-4.

Goal of the game

Stewart's goal at 10:19 of the second period.

Save of the game

Stalock's save on Thompson at 10:50 of the second period.

Highlight of the game

Stalock's save on Bobby Ryan at 4:03 of the third period.

They said it

"I was happy that some guys that hadn't been having too much luck finally scored goals and got points." -- Wild coach Bruce Boudreau
"At the end of the day, we can't be giving up two-goal leads, especially at home. Obviously you can look at the game and say it might have been this, it might have been that, but at the end of the day we've got to do a better job of closing games out." -- Senators forward Mike Hoffman
"Stalock made a big save on that breakaway and that was as good as a goal. There was no looking back from there, and we tied it up and had our swagger and confidence going into the third and took it from there." -- Wild defenseman Nate Prosser

Need to know

Stalock is 3-2-0 and has allowed 11 goals since Devan Dubnyk sustained a lower-body injury in the first period against the Calgary Flames Dec. 12. … The Wild had 40 shots for the first time this season. … Staal has eight points (four goals, four assists) in his past six games. … It was Karlsson's first two-goal game since March 9.

What's next

Wild: At the Florida Panthers on Friday (7:30 p.m. ET; FS-F, FS-N, NHL.TV)
Senators: At the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday (7:30 p.m. ET; SUN, TSN5, RDS, NHL.TV)