"Pretty neat," said Iowa coach Derek Lalonde, serving as head coach for the Wild prospects in the tournament. "You only have so much time with the guys, and structure is one thing and you emphasize compete level, but we talked about [how] we also wanted this tournament to be about winning."
Minnesota went winless in its first three games here last year, Lalonde's first behind the bench in Iowa, before winning the tournament's seventh-place game.
Things looked bleak again for the Wild on Friday after the Blues scored three goals in the span of six or seven shifts during the second period, turning a tie game into a 4-1 advantage. Ivan Lodnia scored a first-period goal for Minnesota as the Wild and Blues were tied at 1 after one.
Blues prospect Klim Kostin scored his second goal of the afternoon 4:38 into the third period to make it a 5-1 game. Kunin scored just over six minutes after that to kickstart the rally.
"I think it kind of went back and forth," Kunin said. "In the second period, we started real hot then it just got away from us. In the third, we decided to get back to keeping it simple, doing the little things and next best shift and it worked out for us."
Eriksson Ek, Kunin, Mayhew and Mason Shaw each finished with multi-point games, with Shaw assisting on Lodnia's first-period tally and on Estephan's tying goal. Goaltender Adam Vay stopped 24 shots.
Minnesota will continue the tournament with the second day of round-robin play on Saturday against the Columbus Blue Jackets, who won 7-2 against the Dallas Stars on Friday.
Faceoff is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. CT, with the game live streamed on FOX Sports GO and Wild.com. Fans outside of the Fox Sports North viewing area can also view the game on NHL.com.