Trailing 3-1 to the Senators in Ottawa, the Minnesota Wild reeled off five straight goals to take control of their game and win going away, 6-4.
With under a minute left in the middle frame the Wild’s Mikko Koivu struck to tie the score at 3-3 after the Senators had seemingly had complete control of the match.
“When you go a long period of time without scoring, even if you get chances, it starts getting frustrating. If it didn’t, I think you’re in the wrong sport, wrong league,” Koivu 
said. “So I felt good, like I said, but I’ve got to keep going.”
In addition to Koivu, the Wild got two goals from Eric Staal and single markers from Chris Stewart, Jonas Brodin, and Nate Prosser.
“I was happy that some guys that hadn’t been having too much luck finally scored goals and got points,” Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau said of the goal outburst.
Erik Karlsson struck twice for Ottawa and Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Derick Brassard added goals in the disappointing loss.
“Once we were up 3-1, they came back strong at us,” Karlsson said. “They made us work really hard. We got a little fatigued and we didn’t make the best decisions. We still went into the third period with a 3-3 game and felt good about ourselves. Unfortunately, they kept coming and we couldn’t really find the solution to stop them early enough and create our own stuff.”
Alex Stalock made 28 saves to pick up the win for the Wild.
Ottawa had a glorious opportunity to stem the tide early on after the Wild had closed to 3-2; on a shorthanded situation, Stalock stopped two shots from in close.
“It’s a save you need to make,” Stalock said. “Lucky enough, I kept it out of the net and gave a little life and we ended up getting two at the end of the period. It was huge.”
Minnesota improved to 18-13-3 with the win.
“Stalock made a big save on that breakaway and that was as good as a goal. There was no looking back from there, and we tied it up and had our swagger and confidence going into the third and took it from there,” Prosser said of the shorthanded chances from the Sens.
[WATCH:Â All Wild vs. Senators highlights]
Craig Anderson made 34 saves in the stunning loss.
“At the end of the day, we can’t be giving up two-goal leads, especially at home. Obviously you can look at the game and say it might have been this, it might have been that, but at the end of the day we’ve got to do a better job of closing games out,” the Senators’ Mike Hoffman said after the loss.
The Senators dropped to 11-14-7 with the loss.
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