Niederreiter has been one of the bright spots for Minnesota over the past handful of games. For 20 2/3 periods, only he, Zucker and Eric Staal had provided goals among Minnesota forwards. Mikael Granlund scored two third-period tallies to make it four scorers over 21 periods (seven games).
Still, without the benefit of a 50-goal scorer on the roster, Minnesota's offense has to come by committee, and right now, there simply aren't enough guys -- at least up front -- helping to drive the bus.
"You'd certainly like other people to score, and you've gotta believe there's other people who are gonna start scoring," said Wild coach Bruce Boudreau. "But it's not hard if you're the other team and they just check a certain number of guys if the other guys aren't gonna score.
"To score goals in this League, sometimes you have to pay the price and go to the net and take one off the noodle or take one off the [rear] or something. But if you go to the net, those are the things that are gonna happen."
Granlund's goals came 7:10 apart in the third to help the Wild rally from two goals down and earn a point. His second came with 1:36 remaining on the clock and Devan Dubnyk on the bench for an extra attacker.