Game 5 thoughts: Wild like a 'pebble in the Dallas Stars' shoe'

This morning at DFW, I chatted with longtime NHLer Ray Ferraro before I boarded a plane home to MSP and he boarded a plane to New York to call Game 6 of the Islanders-Panthers series.

Mikael Granlund was absolutely awesome last night.

So I'm doing a Granlund story for tomorrow with a couple different angles I've yet to write this season, and Ferraro, one of the most well-spoken analysts in the league and a former player of similar stature, was perfect for the subject.

You'll get to read Ferraro's thoughts in tomorrow's article, and they're great.

But Ferraro also compared the Wild to the 1993 Islanders he played on. Facing elimination down 3 games to 2 in the second round, the Islanders returned home and won a wild Game 6, 7-5, before returning to Pittsburgh and winning in overtime in Game 7 to advance to the conference finals.

Last night, the Wild got tying and game-winning goals by captain Mikko Koivu to avoid elimination and return home for a 2 p.m. Game 6 on Sunday trailing the series 3-2.

"Like us, I'm sure there's still nobody that gives Minnesota a chance because I kept waiting for them in this series to get crushed over," Ferraro said. "I didn't think they could win Game 3, I figured Dallas would win Game 4 and I figured Dallas would win last night.

"But now all of a sudden you're the pebble in the Dallas Stars' shoe that they can't get out. It could really happen now for Minnesota."

The momentum has shifted in the series and the pressure's now on Dallas.

The Stars have to be wondering what more they can do. They had the puck most of last night's 5-4 overtime loss, attempted more than 90 shots (which is insane) and still lost because of some bigtime mistakes and some tremendous efforts by many Wild players (Koivu's two goals, Mikael Granlund's ridiculously gritty night, Ryan Suter's two assists and playoff-franchise-record plus-4, Jared Spurgeon's scintillating game, Jordan Schroeder entering for his series debut and scoring a big goal, to name a few).

The Wild blocked a franchise-record 34 shots, got 37 saves from Devan Dubnyk, somehow didn't earn a power play for the first time in its playoff history (probably a good thing) and wound up pulling out the huge win to save its season.

Last night was a total blur. If you followed me on Twitter, you know my laptop did the dreaded blue screen physical memory dump with 10 minutes left in the third period, so there was a good five-minute stretch as my computer rebooted that I thought columnist Jim Souhan or our terrific stringer, Sean Shapiro, would have to quickly scramble and patch together a game story on the fly. Reminded me of 2002 when minutes after the Stanley Cup Final, Scotty Bowman announced his retirement and my laptop imploded with a blue screen in the press area in the bowels of Joe Louis Arena

That laptop fried. This one is the current one I'm writing from on this flight, so hopefully all's good.

Over 12 years of knowing inquisitive John Torchetti, I've explained to him the challenges of covering a game like last night. Just imagine that the Wild's season either continues or is ended with one shot, and you have to react one way or the other the moment it happens with a game story sent to the paper at the buzzer.

That means you've got two game stories going – a win and a loss with all sorts of different words and messages and meanings on different files. It's an absolute mess as you have to update both things on the fly and hope you're not confusing the files.

Well, funny moment: As I was rushing by the coaches office on the way back up to the press box after working the locker room last night, Torchetti emerged and yelled at me waving his finger, "I know you were working on the wrong story, Mikey."

Actually, I wasn't. Thank goodness the Wild won because after that physical memory dump, for some ungodly reason, the only story that saved was my win version and not my lost version.

Serendipity, I suppose.

I owe Koivu a coffee and blueberry muffin next time we have one of our annual powwows. Great winning deflection by Koivu off one of those Suter wristers critics bemoan.

Just a huge win by the Wild, and honestly, how about Granlund's game?

Scores the first goal after David Jones forced Alex Goligoski into a turnover that briefly got the defenseman benched in the first period. Then, on the tying goal, Granlund chipped a shot behind the net and without any hesitation, hustled behind the net, won the puck battle, got it to Jared Spurgeon and then after getting the puck back behind the net one-touched a perfect pass in front for Koivu's tying goal with 3:09 left.

Then, on the winning goal 4:55 into OT, Suter and Nate Prosser got the assist on Koivu's first career playoff overtime winner to cap his first career playoff 2-goal game, but it was Granlund who dug the puck out for Prosser along the half wall.

Granlund does seem like a totally different player on the wing, by the way.

As Ferraro said on the highlight I listened to this morning – which spurred my early morning phone call to him, Granlund was a "first star."

On the game, Granlund said, "It was weird. Everything happened quickly. We were up, they were up. We tied it. That's the hockey. Something like that happens once in a while and we were able to stick with it thought."

Dubnyk, who has been playing all series banged up, did a terrific job in this game. It's just crazy how many crazy goals go in against this guy. It's about eight in the series, the latest being Goligoski's goal that happens to deflect in off defenseman Marco Scandella AND Prosser. Scandella, by the way, has to be better. Minus-3 tonight and just off for much of the series. And Prosser obviously can't be throwing pucks up the middle of the gut like he did before the Johnny Oduya goal, although Prosser recovered to play a decent game.

Some other postgame quotes:

KOIVU

"Those are big. All the goals tonight and the whole game kept us alive here, and now we have another chance to go home, and play in Game 6. Now the preparing starts for that one."

On the rollercoaster: "For sure when you have the lead you want to hold onto that, but they have a lot of skill there. They made nice plays, they made goals, but there was a lot of time left, so we knew if we kept pushing and pushing, we were going to get our chances, too. We did, and we got rewarded."

On losing the lead with two goals 28 seconds apart in the third: "I know it sounds like a cliché, but it's all about the next one. It's about the next goal, it's about the next game, and that's what it is. That was a good learning experience for us, and being able to handle that, especially in the third, especially late in the game. Even if you lose the momentum that will happen too, so you just have to respond the right way, and we did."

On the feel of the team: "Confidence wise, we need to get all the good things from it. But again, it's a new game when we go home, and we have to start preparing right now. It doesn't' really matter how you get the win, it's only one win, and like I said, you to have to prepare the right way to make sure we're ready to go when the puck drops in Minny."

On his two goals: "Of course, it's always nice to score. You're always trying to do that. It's more important in the bigger picture how you play individually and as a team. We're doing a lot of good things. We've been playing better as the series goes on here, and that's a good sign. We still have steps to go, and we want to improve our team."

SUTER

"It's a lot of emotions. The whole series has been ups and downs, and that's what playoffs are. You know the third period was wild. We took the lead and then they came back and scored a couple, then we were able to stick with it and take it to overtime and Mikko made a good deflection on that overtime goal."

On the third period: "That was pretty nuts. It says a lot about the group we have. We don't quit, we go out there and play hard. Now we're going back home and need to take care of business back home."

On the winning goal: "I was just trying to get it to the net. I saw we had someone going to the net and just trying to get in there for him to get a stick on it. Finally it happened, he got a stick on it.

On Mikko: "When you lose top players other guys have to step up and Mikko has stepped up. You know, everyone has stepped up. I think our whole team played well, and Duby played great, and everyone played great."

On momentum: :Hopefully. We're going back home and we know they're going to come hard, we have to have that same desperation in our game and have to know it's do or die."

DUBNYK

"That's just so big to get that goal for Mikko to tie the game. That's the season right there. Now we're in a good spot to go back home, and play them hard in our building again, and that's what we were looking for. Just some real big plays out of guys when it would have been easy to feel about the bounces. The fourth goal was a crazy bounce, and it didn't matter to us. We just kept going, and got huge plays from guys, and that's what you need."

On Koivu: "Obviously everybody knows what he brings. It's not just the goal-scoring, but his overall game is as good as it gets. For him to step up like that, it's pretty awesome."

On Game 6: "We'll work to use the crowd, and work hard, and give them a good game in Game 6. We love playing in our barn, and have a good feeling about it. That was the next step for us, to get back home, and now we'll move on to that one."

Ever been part of a third like that? "Not in a game of this magnitude. It was weird. I liked the response out of everybody. You can sense out of yourself and other guys when guys start to get nervous and tense, and I just really didn't feel that. It was a strange period obviously, and like I said, we didn't get up tight. We kept our heads down, and went, and got a huge play. That's so big for us."

TORCHETTI

On the emotions of this game
"It started this morning. We felt confident, we thought we were going to come out and play a good game. Games 2, 3, 4 and 5 I've liked. Now we got to go home and try and find a way to get back to Dallas."

On what it was like on the bench down 4-3 with 4:00 left in regulation
"I thought that leadership pulled us through. I thought that scored a big goal there. Mikko [Koivu] and [Granlund] there, [Charlie Coyle] banging away, [Suter] and [Spurgeon], [Suter] had a big game, a plus game. Leadership did a great job. PK was the difference in the game for us early. We made some big stops and big blocks in that 4-on-3, just a solid game from everybody and our leadership found a way to win a game for us."

On the Goligoski goal being bizarre
"Which one was that? I never even know. Yeah, they did a good job. We got to do a better job getting there quicker and not giving that lane, and making sure there's more blocks out so there's not any chance to get a puck off a body to another body."

On what this game means for Mikko Koivu
"Well, I think that he really wanted it, that's for sure. I don't know all the stat stuff and all that, I just know that his leadership, that's what it's all about. Like we said when we were 0-2 and you talk about leadership, leaders find a way to get things done. And definitely our leaders, Mikko [Koivu], [Suter], [Spurgeon]. If I had another 'A,' he [Spurgeon] would definitely probably be wearing one. [Pominville], Haula's line, everybody played a good game though. I thought [Coyle]'s line coming. I think [Zucker] is coming and that's what we need, to get him going. That's going to help us out a great deal."

On Granlund's performance
"We don't worry about points, probably our best competitor. Heart on the lion, that's what it's all about. I don't judge players on points, I judge our team and our team play meaning he was relentless for his teammates and that's what he's been this whole series. You play for your teammates. I don't care about wins or losses. If we play hard when we lose, hey, hat's off to the other team, just got to play hard."

On starting well
"Well, I just think we were determined. We didn't like the way that we finished the game at home. We thought that we still had a chance to win and like I said, we had two good looks 6-on-5 and we just got to execute. We had a couple good looks and hopefully we're ready again though, got to get more net-front presence, get power play time because that's probably the first game I've been in no power play. I think we had a power play coming before Nino [Niederreiter]'s goal, so we got a power-play goal without being out there, so it's a good start."

On games like this
"Oh, it's fun. My job is, I can't even believe they pay me for this job because it's so much fun. That's what it's all about."

On wanting to get the series back to Minnesota
"We wanted to come back for our fans. They deserve this game. We should have kept it 2-2 but we didn't. They did a fantastic job in Game 4 in our building and they got a win. Now we had to come back here and get a win, but we got to come back and I'm sure our fans will be backing us big time. I'm looking forward to the game."

That's it for now. I should start blogging in the morning, not after games. So much more energy and thoughts after I have time to think about the game.

I'll talk to you after today's 2:30 p.m. practice.

I'll be on KFAN at 11:15 a.m. and also I think Jim and I are doing our podcast at Tom Reid's tomorrow at 10 a.m.