NEW YORK -- At times, the New York Rangers can look like an undisciplined mess.

They can also look like the team that went to the Stanley Cup finals.

Monday night, it was two periods of mess, then one period of magic. But in this case, magic more than made up for mess, as the Rangers rallied for a stunning 5-4 win over the Minnesota Wild at Madison Square Garden.

The Rangers scored all five of their goals in the third period, with rookie Anthony Duclair electrifying the crowd when he tied the game at 16:12, and Mats Zuccarello keeping it going with the go-ahead goal just 37 seconds later.

It was an incredible turnaround after two periods in which the Rangers were outshot 24-8 and outscored 3-0, and lost two players to major penalties.

The Rangers finish October with a 5-4-0 record.

Rick Nash, who scored one of the third-period goals, finished the month with an NHL-high nine goals in nine games.

Even with the comeback, the two major penalties were bad. Chris Kreider got the first and ended up with a game misconduct for knocking Jonas Brodin into the boards. John Moore got the second, for an elbow to the head of Erik Haula.

Wild third: The Wild came into the night having allowed an NHL-low six goals in the first six games of the season, with three shutouts and three games in which they allowed two goals.

Then the Rangers scored five times in one period to win the game.

Kreider crashes, Moore burns: Kreider didn't let up when he went after Jonas Brodin in the Rangers' offensive zone in the final seconds of the first period, and when Brodin stayed down, Kreider got the major penalty and the ejection from the game. Moore's penalty was even less excusable, an elbow behind the play at 7:12 of the second period that earned him a match penalty.

Kreider was already going to be a focus of attention Monday, because his recent mistakes got him booted off the power play. Then he got himself booted from the game before the Rangers even had a power-play opportunity.

Central issue: Three games after deciding that the move of Martin St. Louis to center wasn't working, Rangers coach Alain Vigneault moved St. Louis back to the middle for the start of Monday's game. The issue was that Kevin Hayes hasn't played well, and that Vigneault wanted Ryan Malone back in the lineup to play on the power play. So Hayes was a healthy scratch, and St. Louis was back at center on a line with Carl Hagelin and Rick Nash.

With no Kreider for the final two periods and with Vigneault then forced to mix and match, St. Louis returned to the wing.

On the defensive: For the first time this season, Ryan McDonagh and Dan Girardi weren't together as the Rangers' top defense pairing. Vigneault had McDonough play with Kevin Klein, and put Girardi with Marc Staal.

The switch didn't help. Klein and McDonough were caught on the same side of the ice for the second Wild goal, leaving Matt Cooke wide open directly in front of the net.

What's next: The Rangers don't play again until Saturday night, when they host the Winnipeg Jets at 7 p.m.