ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Goaltender Devan Dubnyk has led the Minnesota Wild's resurgence; his numbers easy to show the dramatic turnaround in goal for the Wild.
The unsung stats during Minnesota's post All-Star game run can also be partially attributed to Dubnyk, though he would say the defense deserves credit, as well. The Wild has won seven of its eight games since the All-Star break by not succumbing to the opponent's power play.
Dubnyk made 26 saves and Minnesota was 5 of 5 on the penalty kill in Thursday's 2-1 win against the Florida Panthers. Zach Parise added a power-play goal for the Wild's sparkling special teams.
"We say it all along: 'Special teams are going to win you games and lose you games,'" Parise said. "Tonight it actually won us the game with the big kills and a power-play goal. They've got to be really good if you want to be a good team."
Special teams are helping Minnesota win a lot of games since the All-Star break. The Wild have four power-play goals in the past eight games since the break. More importantly, Minnesota has been a perfect 22 of 22 on the penalty kill in those games.
Florida had two chances with the man-advantage in the third period with a chance to tie the game. The Wild survived a 4-minute, double-minor high-sticking call on Ryan Suter and a tripping penalty against Nino Niedderreiter with 1 minute, 19 seconds left in which the Panthers also pulled their goaltender for an extra skater.
Dubnyk stopped all eight shots he faced on the penalty kill in the game.
"We've just been working hard and we're working pretty well together," Dubnyk said of the penalty kill. "I'm seeing a lot of shots. There hasn't been a ton of screens, and the guys have blocked a lot so it's been awesome."
Dubnyk's arrival in Minnesota has changed the entire team's fortunes, but it's also provided the final line of defense on the penalty kill, in which the Wild now rank fourth in the NHL at 85.4 percent.
"It doesn't sound like a whole lot, but when you show some poise and you're able to get one of those pucks down the ice, you're killing 15 seconds," head coach Mike Yeo said of the penalty kill. "With that, I thought we did a good job through the neutral zone making it tough for them to have easy entries into our zone.
"And, obviously, I keep saying this, but your best penalty killer is always your goalie, and Dubey was doing a great job back there -- obviously, making the first save, controlling the rebounds. But he's also, if a team is dumping it in or we're forcing them to give it up, then he's helping to retrieve some of those pucks, and that's huge."
Meanwhile, the Wild's power play has four goals in the past six games.
"I think our power play has been really good lately," Parise said. "Even times we haven't scored, we've been moving around really well. It just feels like we're a little more active, I think. We're moving a little more. We're supporting more. I think teams that are going to be aggressive, you have to move it quick. We've been doing that. We've been using our middle man really well and kind of collapsing their box. That's how you got to beat the aggressive ones."
