ST. PAUL, Minn. — Matt Dumba scored twice, Devan Dubnyk made 28 saves and the Minnesota Wild took out some recent frustrations on the Montreal Canadiens in a 7-1 victory Tuesday night.
Minnesota Wild’s Nino Niederreiter, Zach Parise and Charlie Coyle (AP Photo/Stacy Bengs)
The Wild scored four times in the second period to recover from a lousy swing through Western Canada, when Minnesota dropped two of three and lost captain Mikko Koivu to injury.
Nino Niederreiter, Charlie Coyle, Eric Staal, Jared Spurgeon and Zach Parise also scored for Minnesota (16-12-2), which went 4 for 4 on the power play.
Jeff Petry scored for Montreal (15-11-5), which ended a three-game winning streak.
After taking a 1-0 lead on Niederreiter’s first-period goal, the Wild exploded in the second period. Dumba started the outburst when he cashed in on the first penalty of the game. He ripped a shot off a cross-ice feed from Mikael Granlund for a 2-0 lead on the power play.
Coyle made it 3-0 with a short-handed goal at 12:33. He ripped a back-handed shot past Antti Niemi.
Staal followed up his own rebound at 14:58 to make it 4-0, and with 1.7 seconds left in the period, Spurgeon added a second power-play goal with a one-timer.
Dumba added another power-play goal early in the third. He leads NHL defenceman with 12 goals and six power-play goals. Parise also scored on a power play.
The Wild lead quickly returned to six when, on another play play, Spurgeon found Parise with a blueline-to-blueline pass and Parise buried his 14th goal of the season.
Niemi made 24 saves before giving way to Carey Price. Montreal started its three-game road trip with wins over Ottawa and Chicago. The Canadiens had won four of their previous five.
NOTES: Minnesota was playing its second game without Koivu, who was injured during Thursday’s 2-0 loss in Calgary. The Wild also were in danger of losing their third consecutive home game. The last time they lost three or more games in St. Paul was March 23-28, 2017.
UP NEXT
Canadiens: Host Carolina on Thursday night.
Wild: Host Florida on Thursday night.
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By Joe Ziemer, The Associated Press
