Minnesota slumbered through the first five minutes, allowing the Ducks to get on the scoreboard first on a goal by Joseph Cramarossa at 4:38 of the opening period. The Wild awoke after that, drawing its first power play two minutes later and nearly tying the game a handful of times on that man advantage alone.
"We knew they were end of a road trip and figured we had the legs on them, but not the best start," said Wild forward Charlie Coyle. "Obviously you want to start off and try to get that first one. Sometimes that's not the case. We battle back and kind of got into it, and their goalie came up huge. A number of pucks on net and chances, that's how it goes sometimes. Yeah, you tip your hat to him."
Twelve of Minnesota's 13 first-period shots came after Anaheim scored its goal.
2. Minnesota's NHL-best home power play was unable to convert on any of its five opportunities.
The Wild, which entered the game having scored on 30.1 percent of its chances at Xcel Energy Center this season, was granted a pair of power plays in each the first and second periods and another a few minutes into the third but was unable to find a way to get the puck past Gibson.
Even Anaheim's broken sticks (twice) and a dropped stick (once), which gave the Wild a virtual two-man advantage for several seconds on three separate power plays, made no difference.
3. Playing the final game of a marathon road trip that began nearly two weeks ago, Anaheim (30-18-10) played its finest period of the night in the third. Like Gibson on the other end, Wild goaltender Devan Dubnyk was up to the challenge.
Dubnyk, who entered the game with 31 victories, an NHL best, stopped 11 shots over the final 20 minutes to keep Minnesota afloat until the final moments.
"It's the way it goes. Those happen, those games happen every once in a while," Dubnyk said. "Like I said, we're not going to look back on that game and change anything we did. We play like that, we're going to win 90 percent of the time. We just got to keep doing that."
