In Denver, three straight goals from the visiting Minnesota Wild erased a 4-3 Colorado Avalanche lead and sent the Wild to a 6-4 win on Friday night.
The rally also dimmed the memory of the Wild surrendering a 2-0 lead in the game.
Mats Zuccarello and Victor Rask pushed the Wild to a 5-4 lead in the rally.
“When you believe you can come back, you have to have that belief before you can do it,” Wild coach Bruce Boudreau said. “I don’t think we had it at the beginning of the year, but I do think the guys never think they’re out of it at this stage.”
Ryan Suter finished the surge with an empty-net goal.
Devan Dubnyk made 40 saves in the win.
“The most important thing is we stayed with it,” Dubnyk said. “The guys played awesome in the third and scored some big goals.”
Matt Calvert scored his second goal of the early in the third period to give the Avs the 4-3 lead.
“They’ve all come in different ways,” Calvert said. “We’ve got to clean that up. If we do that, we’re going to be a good hockey team. We made too many mistakes tonight.”
Carson Soucy and Eric Staal scored early in the opening frame for the 2-0 lead for the Wild.
“Sloppy start,” Colorado head coach Jared Bednar said. “We gave up a couple of goals and then I thought our game came around the second part of the first.”
Gabriel Landeskog and Nathan MacKinnon also scored for Colorado.
“We had a one-goal lead with 10 minutes to go in the game,” Landeskog said. “Again, it’s a couple defensive breakdowns that give them the lead. It [stinks].”
Brad Hunt also scored for the Wild.
“It’s kind of the way we’ve been for this whole first half of the year,” Staal said. “To give up goals there in the last minute of both periods and still come back and continue to play and just stay even-keeled, it’s a credit to a lot of guys in our room. Big win against a division team and we have to try to keep going.”
[WATCH: All Wild vs. Avalanche highlights]
Pavel Francouz made 27 saves in the loss.
“It’s habits, it’s consistency,” Bednar said. “You take the season as a whole and we’ve been pretty good, but this shows we have work to do. Points are so valuable and we’ve let some slip away lately. We have to make sure we’re digging in to get them back. We’ve got to get our game in order quick.”
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