In St Paul, Marc-Andre Fleury made 32 saves and the Minnesota Wild defeated the visiting Philadelphia Flyers, 4-1, on Tuesday night.
The Wild have won seven straight and improved to 41-20-4.
“Teams like [the Flyers] that maybe are not in the run for the playoffs are dangerous because they play loose and are trying more plays sometimes, and that’s dangerous if we’re caught cheating the game,” the Wild’s Frederick Gaudreau said. “I think the most important thing was to stay true to our identity and not start cheating the game. I think overall we did a pretty good job of that.”
Matt Dumba and Kirill Kaprizov scored in the first period to give the Wild a 2-0 lead.
“We’ve got some different people scoring in different situations,” Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. “You even look at the overtimes the last three games, we’ve had different scorers, so it’s nice to have that depth. And there’s always an internal competition to play more and different situations. I think our group has done a real good job.”
Jordan Greenway and Kevin Fiala hit for goals in the middle frame for a 4-0 lead after 40 minutes.
“I just tried to get open,” Fiala said. “A few times, (Tampa Bay Lightning forward Steven) Stamkos would do it a lot. (I) practice on it sometimes and yeah, it worked out, so it was good.”
The loss eliminated the Flyers from the playoff chase., they dropped to 21-35-11.
“I think we just took our foot off the gas pedal,” the Flyers’ Cam Atkinson said. “Panic kind of set in for no reason. Obviously, we can’t do that. (We) showed what we could do in the first 15 (minutes), which is play fast and wanting the puck, manning the puck and trying to make plays.
“I think we had three or four 3-on-2s playing the right way, then it just kind of deflated the bench when they scored. Second period wasn’t our best as well. We just wanted to play hard. You never know what could happen if you score a goal in the third. I thought the third period was definitely our best.”
The Flyers’ Morgan Frost scored a power play goal in the third period to ruin Fleury’s attempt at a shutout.
“I give the guys credit, the way that we came out in the third,” Philadelphia coach Mike Yeo said. “Obviously, it’s not easy. It’s frustrating. But I have seen that with this group that they don’t quit. We have to make sure that we keep that.
“It’s tough to sit here, when you lose by the score that we do, to point to positives, but that’s got to be our mindset. There were positives in that game tonight.”
Martin Jones made 33 saves in the Flyers loss.
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