ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Matt Dumba and the Minnesota Wild will take a hard-fought win over sloppy play any time.
Devan Dubnyk made 28 saves for his fourth shutout of the season, Dumba scored a power-play goal and the Wild beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 1-0 on Thursday night.
The Wild came into the game on a bit of a skid, having gone 2-4-2 in their last eight games. But buoyed by a 2-1 win at Chicago on Tuesday, Minnesota turned in another strong defensive effort in front of Dubnyk.
"It's been awesome to see the boys bear down and get two solid wins and kind of get this thing back on track," said Dumba.
James Reimer stopped 27 shots for the Maple Leafs, who outshot Minnesota 13-0 over a 16-minute stretch spanning the first and second periods. They even held the Wild without a shot through almost two full power plays. However, with 9 seconds remaining in the second man advantage, Dumba finally got a shot on net, scoring the lone goal.
Standing in the high slot, Dumba took a pass out of the corner from Charlie Coyle. He dropped it for Jared Spurgeon, then took a return pass from Spurgeon and blasted a shot over Reimer's right shoulder for his third goal of the season.
"I liked the mentality of the goal we scored," Wild coach Mike Yeo said, "winning battles down low and then just a quick-shot mentality."
Toronto appeared to have tied the game with 4 minutes to go when Peter Holland pounced on a loose puck in front of the net and slipped it past Dubnyk. But Yeo challenged the call, arguing that Holland was offside when the Leafs gained the zone, and video replay confirmed that Holland's skate was just over the blue line as Byron Froese carried the puck across.
"When it happened, I thought about (being offside) but once I scored I completely forgot about it, as you do," Holland said. "When I got back to the bench they said they were going upstairs and then, obviously, it came back to me."
Dubnyk noted that the call gave him a statistical rarity.
"It's the rare one goal-against shutout," Dubnyk said. "You don't see it too often."
The Maple Leafs were coming off a 6-1 loss in Winnipeg on Wednesday night, so even in a loss they showed signs of bouncing back.
"I thought we both played great. It was one of those games where we just couldn't find a way to score," Reimer said. "They got that one on the (power play) and then they were able to hang on. ... If we keep playing like that and that hard we're bound to score goals and win games."
Meanwhile, the last time the Wild were at Xcel Energy Center, Dubnyk was in the net when they blew a 3-0 third-period lead in a 4-3 overtime loss to Dallas. Back-to-back wins over Chicago and Toronto have the Wild breathing a bit easier, especially with their big-money goalie playing well in both games.
"I thought he had to make some more acrobatic saves against Chicago," Yeo said, "but tonight was no less challenging because of the traffic, the net-front play that they had."
