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Belanger's three points lift Wild over Coyotes

Dec 28, 2007 - 6:20 AM GLENDALE, Arizona (Ticker) -- Eric Belanger helped the Minnesota Wild put a tough loss behind them.

Belanger had a power-play goal and assisted on two others as the Wild recorded a 3-2 victory over the Phoenix Coyotes on Thursday.

Mark Parrish and Brian Rolston also scored with the man advantage for Minnesota, which captured its third win over Phoenix this season and sixth in a row overall.

It was the second game this season with multiple power-play points for Belanger, who is in his first season with the Wild.

"I am really comfortable playing with Rolston and Parrish on the power play," Belanger said. "We really like playing well together and it showed tonight."

Minnesota has been riding high with the man advantage, notching three power-play goals in two of its last four games.

Wrapping up a brief two-game road trip, Minnesota was coming off an 8-3 loss at the Dallas Stars on Wednesday. It was the most goals that it had surrendered since giving up the same amount at Detroit on November 16, 2001.

Moving back into net after a day off, Niklas Backstrom turned away 46 shots en route to picking up his first win since December 8.

"He played well," Minnesota coach Jacques Lemaire said of his goaltender. "He made the saves at the right time to keep us in the game."

Belanger did not need long to supply some support for Backstrom, opening the scoring 2:08 into the contest when he picked up a rebound off a shot by Brent Burns and beat Ilya Bryzgalov to the stick side for his ninth of the season.

According to Lemaire, that early goal by Belanger played a big role in the Wild coming back from that previous loss.

"I could see we were a little fragile at the start, but we picked it up and the first goal meant a lot for the team," he said.

The Coyotes, who dropped their third straight home game (0-2-1), managed to tie the score early in the second, as Joel Perrault collected his third goal of the season with just 3:23 expired.

Perrault tallied on a power play after picking up a loose puck off a rebound by Backstrom on a shot by Derek Morris and buried a wrist shot into an open net.

Minnesota, however, went back ahead less than seven minutes later as Belanger found a streaking Parrish near the right faceoff circle. Parrish took the pass and burst in front of Bryzgalov before rattling a backhanded shot off the left post.

The Wild extended the lead to 3-1 on another power play 3:51 into the third, with Rolston's shot from the blue line beating the screened Bryzgalov, who finished with 23 saves.

Overall, Minnesota was successful on all but one of its four power-play opportunities while Phoenix was just 1-for-6.

Despite getting 16 shots on the man advantage, Coyotes coach Wayne Gretzky was quite unhappy with the lack of production from his power-play units.

"We have people who expect to be on the power play every night, but we aren't getting the results," he said. "If the young guys are going to score and they are getting opportunities, I am going to play them. Simple as that."

One of those youngsters that stepped up was Enver Lisin, who was a surprising participant to Phoenix's attempted rally when he recorded his first goal even strength with 2:27 remaining. Lisin had being called up from the minors a day earlier.

"He is playing well and he was skating well, and when you are skating and not turning (over) pucks and not giving the puck away you get to play," Gretzky said. "We had too many on the power play that was doing that and it was horrendous tonight."

After a shot from Shane Doan from the right boards was deadened in the middle of the ice off the skate of Minnesota defenseman Kim Johnsson, Lisin stormed in to slam the puck home.

It was the 500th career point for Doan.

"It's nice, but I would have much rather got the win," said Doan, who has a five-game points streak.