Wild answers adversity once again in win over Coyotes

ST. PAUL -- The Wild has plenty of skilled depth up and down its lineup, so of course, its biggest win of the early season came ugly.
You won't see anyone in Minnesota's dressing room complain, though.
Down a pair of centermen early in the game, the Wild played with just nine forwards on the second half of back-to-back games, overcoming a sloppy start in a 2-1 win against the Arizona Coyotes on Tuesday at Xcel Energy Center.

About a half hour before puck drop, the Wild announced that captain Mikko Koivu would not play because his wife, Helena, was in labor, about to give birth to the couple's third child.

With Koivu out, the Wild suited up defenseman Nate Prosser for the first time this season and skated him sparingly on the wing. He played just four shifts, accumulating a little more than three minutes in ice time.
But things were about to get worse for the Wild.
Late in the first period, Matt Hendricks got tangled up near the blue line with Arizona's Brandon Perlini, who appeared to fall on Hendricks' left ankle. Hendricks crawled to the Wild bench and went immediately down the tunnel and did not return.

"It reminded me of the game in Chicago last year when we lost three guys during the course of the game," said Wild coach Bruce Boudreau. "We were using eight forwards at the end, I think, that night. I kept thinking that we won that game so they were going to dig deep and win again."
For some reason, adversity seems to suit the Wild well.
That night in Chicago, the Wild was playing with seven defensemen and then lost three forwards to injury in the game.
Under much different circumstances on Tuesday, the Wild once again rose to the occasion, getting a much needed two points.
"It's a good thing. I've known that since I've been here for 2 years. We've got guys that care and understand what we need to do to get the job done," said Wild forward Eric Staal. "It's not for a lack of care or understanding. Guys know what's at stake and what we need to do to win. We needed to get this one. We knew it. After last night, we were obviously happy with the way we competed but at the end of the day, it's about results and we didn't get the result last night so we needed to get it today and we gutted it out. It was a good effort and good win."

Even Staal's game-winning goal was emblematic of the effort. One period after being robbed by former Wild netminder Darcy Kuemper on what would have been the perfect exclamation point on a pretty 3-on-1 rush, Staal's winner 6:18 into the third period came as the Wild threw traffic in front of the crease and the puck slid right to him at an open patch of ice.
Staal made no mistake about the second try, slamming the puck home from a couple feet out.
"That's frustrating. I'll give him some kudos. It was a great save, but I gotta bury those ones. I just didn't get it up," Staal said. "Obviously, in hindsight, you wish maybe you just delayed a little bit and got it up but a lot of times in this league it's about quickness and getting it off as fast as you can and that's what I tried to do there. He's got long legs and got across.
"But I stayed with it, and I knew if I stayed around that net I was going to get an opportunity again and found one in the third and it was what we needed and good win."

Boudreau had no update on Hendricks after the game, saying only that Hendricks believes his lower-body injury isn't too serious.
If he misses any time, it would leave a huge void in the Wild's dressing room and on its penalty kill, which is already without Joel Eriksson Ek.
"Hopefully it's just a tweak. I don't know if it was the knee or the ankle, I'm not even sure about that," said Wild forward Eric Fehr. "Hopefully he's alright, he's a big key for us ... and he brings it every night. That'd be a big loss for us."
Without Koivu, the Wild got a look at Mikael Granlund at center for the first time in more than two years. Granlund, who began his NHL career at the pivot, was moved to wing on a permanent basis by former Wild interim coach John Torchetti near the end of the 2015-16 season.

He looked so comfortable on the wing that Boudreau kept him there upon taking over as coach the following summer. Granlund has responded by posting the two best offensive seasons of his career, scoring 136 points over the past two campaigns.
Tuesday, he found out a couple hours before the game that he was moving back to his original position, one he played for Finland at last year's World Championships.
"I can play both. It's a little bit different, but I like them both," Granlund said.
"He played well," Boudreau said. "That's why we have our best players, they're supposed to be our best players."
If Hendricks and Eriksson Ek remain out for the team's next game on Friday in Dallas, the Wild will need to make a roster move to call up a forward. But it proved once again that it isn't afraid to do whatever it takes to earn a win.
Even if that means winning ugly.

"A big part of our success in the past has been the depth of our group and different people stepping up when we need them to," said Wild goaltender Devan Dubnyk, who finished with 31 saves. "We certainly have the guys in here that if we lose a couple we can continue to go. We have a lot of experience in this room so we know how to make games like that happen. We know if we hang in there and stay tight we are going to get a goal and we did that. It was nice to hang on to one. Obviously we have had a couple late blown leads. It's good to get that feeling of winning at the end."

Related: