Parise, meanwhile, recovered from a frustrating night Thursday in which he took a franchise-record 11 shots but couldn't find twine. That summed up the evening -- and the last couple weeks -- as Anaheim snapped a tumultuous 12-game losing streak in St. Paul.
General Manager Paul Fenton had already dealt minor leaguer Justin Kloos to the Ducks in exchange for Pontus Aberg, hoping to add some more firepower. Friday, he shook things up further by trading Nino Niederreiter for Victor Rask, capping a whirlwind few days for a team still trying to find its stride.
Rask and Aberg earned the assists on Parise's goal Saturday. The pair hadn't skated together before warmups.
Want more Wild headlines? [Sign up for e-News]
But they talked a lot leading up to the game, Rask said, and had some familiarity from the get-go.
Preparedness.
"You just kind of learn to play with each other," Rask said. "It's going to take some time, but luckily we got on the board right away, so that's good."
Maybe more than good, the way the Central Division and Western Conference are shaking out. By the time he addressed reporters following Saturday's victory, Boudreau had already checked the out-of-town scores and seen that of the five teams hovering around the West's final Wild Card spot, four -- including the Wild -- earned wins.
Minnesota will see one of them Wednesday at Colorado in its last game before the break, but first comes a test Monday in Vegas against the defending Western Conference champions.
"Any time we win, I'm happy," Boudreau said. "You know the way it goes. I think ... there's so many teams that are hitting their sense of urgency right now, which is right now a lot earlier than normal. But you could just look at the out-of-town scores, all the teams that had lost that are close together, they won tonight against good teams. So the sense of urgency is there.
"I gotta believe it's going to be quite a race from here on in."
Related: