In St Paul, the Wild surrendered two goals in the third period to the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday and lost, 3-2.
Troy Terry hit for a double for the Ducks, his second of the game came at 11:40 of the third for the game-winner.
“I just came out of the box and saw that we had a turnover and it worked out,” Terry said. “Our guys were great on the kill all night, and I put them on the kill twice. I went from trying not to be the bad guy to getting that chance and scoring. So I just tried to shoot the puck to the guy and it hit his foot, and then I kind of got lucky the puck came back to me and I just tried to take a step and go up.”
Lukas Dostal made 35 saves in the win.
“I think the guys did a great job boxing out. They made my life a little bit easier,” Dostal said. “Minnesota, they have some of the big bodies, so they got in front of the net quite a lot, I think that’s their system. But the guys have been blocking a lot of shots and stuff. So it was a great game by our team.”
Anaheim moved to 17-30-2.
Kirill Kaprizov opened the scoring in the first period at 6:39 for a 1-0 lead to the Wild.
Terry hit for his first of the game at 8:17 after a turnover for a 1-1 tie.
Minnesota reclaimed the lead at 18:37 when Jon Merrill tipped in a shot from Mats Zuccarello for a 2-1 advantage headed to the middle frame.
“That’s hockey for you,” Zuccarello said. “I feel like we created enough. There were some breakdowns, and they scored on their chances. ‘Gus’ was good, too. They had two or three breakaways, as well. We were sloppy. At the end of the day, I think it’s one of those games where they score and we don’t, and we should probably score a couple more.”
In the middle frame, the Wild seemed to have scored to make it 3-1, but the goal was challenged by Anaheim and waved off.
“That was big,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said. “Brett Ferguson is our video guy and he called it right away. We couldn’t get a good angle from the bench, there were a number of different angles, but he was really confident the angle he had showed it.
“[Minnesota] came out like a lightning bolt and they dominated the second period, they just won face-offs, won 1-on-1 battles, won edge battles outraced us to the puck. …The message to our team was it’s going to be a long night if we don’t pick it up and match their speed and their battle level. I thought we did, and it turned into more of an even [third] period.”
Ryan Strome started the third period rally for the Ducks when he scored at 6:43 to tie the game, 2-2, setting Terry’s heroics.
The Wild dropped to 21-23-5
“You have to play the game you’re in,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “I thought we had opportunities to get it and didn’t get it. When you’re in a 2-1 game, that’s where your details matter. You gotta be able to win games 2-1 too. But certainly would we like to get the third goal and extend the lead, for sure. We were working towards that, but when it doesn’t happen and then you’re in critical areas where you’re called up on to defend the right way and we don’t, that’s the lesson out of the last two gam
Filip Gustavsson made 22 saves in the loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.