It's a Wild rarity when Koivu, Suter team up to deliver a key goal

DALLAS – Mikko Koivu and Ryan Suter don't score all that often, and they score even less in combination.

Late Friday night, Suter, the assistant captain, flipped a shot in overtime toward the Dallas Stars' net. Koivu, the captain, flashed across the crease and deflected into the net. That quickly, two players whose offensive productive frequently comes under scrutiny had combined to extend the Wild's season.

That goal, 4 minutes, 55 seconds into overtime in Game 5, sends the first-round series back to Minnesota with Dallas holding a 3-2 lead, sends the series back in a way that has to make the higher seed nervous, having failed to hold a late lead at home.

It's rare enough to see Koivu celebrating any playoff goal at this stage of his career. His postseason efforts with the Wild have been marred by whiffs and near-misses, but late Friday he was the one pumping his fist and celebrating and skating toward Suter.

Koivu's deflection won a game that felt like survival, and was required for survival, and offered a reminder of how fickle playoff hockey can be.

The Wild took a two-goal lead over the Stars early, then began leaking like a pin-pricked balloon. It was like watching someone hold on to the side of a skyscraper by his cuticles.

After the Wild took the early lead with goals from the unlikely Mikael Granlund and the improbable Jordan Schroeder, much of the remainder of Game 5 of the first round of the Stanley Cup playoff felt like a Dallas power play.

By the end of the game Dallas outshot the Wild 41-24 and doubled the Wild in the more-important category of prime scoring chances.

Koivu had scored three goals in his previous 32 playoff games. Now here he was scoring the goal late in the third period that sent the game into overtime, then scored the game-winner like he was someone like Patrick Kane.

Suter and Koivu, so often emblematic of the Wild's lack of firepower, brought the series home and delayed Wild management's decisions on interim coach John Torchetti, his staff and a handful of key players. Without assistant captain Zach Parise in the lineup, Suter and Koivu, the other two members of the leadership group, produced.

"When you lose top players, other guys have to step up, and Mikko has stepped up,'' Suter said.

If the Wild could have taken a collective knee midway through the first period, it would have.

Running out the clock in the NHL requires a little more effort than that, and the Wild expended much of its effort skating backward and hoping Dallas would miss the net. Which the Stars often did, until a three-goal outburst in the third period gave them a 4-3 lead.

Torchetti has played hunches and relied on familiarity while making lineup changes during this season. Friday night, he scratched Justin Fontaine and Ryan Carter in favor of Schroeder and Jarret Stoll.

Asked after the morning skate what he brought to the Wild lineup, Schroeder said "Speed." But for a fast, skilled player he, like Granlund, had not produced much this season.

Schroeder had scored two goals in 26 games, and neither of them were clean. One bounced in off his hand, and another was deflected from well wide of the net.

Friday, he frequently found open ice, and he was able to put home a shot after breaking free in front of the Stars' net to make it 2-0.

It was Schroeder's first playoff goal and point since he played for the Chicago Wolves in 2012.

Suter finished with two assists, a game-high 32:40 minutes on the ice and a game-high plus-4 rating, a day after owner Craig Leipold praised this as his best season.

Power forward Kurtis Gabriel, like Schroeder, was a hunch play by Torchetti, brought up from Iowa to provide size and intimidation. He produced one big hit and almost a goal on a shot that left the puck sitting in front of the post after Stars goalie Antti Niemi barely covered it.

Torchetti's hunches proved prescient, and Koivu found his scoring touch. It doesn't have to be predictable to be true.

Jim Souhan's podcast can be heard at MalePatternPodcasts.com. On Twitter: @SouhanStrib. • jsouhan@startribune.com