In Vancouver, Filip Gustavsson made 35 saves and the Minnesota Wild scored once in each period for a 3-0 win over the Canucks on Saturday night.
“Our commitment level was real high here,” coach Dean Evason said.
The Wild improved to 14-11-2.
“A relief,” Gustavsson said. “It’s been close. It was close my first ever game, lost it with five minutes left, and then I had a pretty close one this year with [the] San Jose [Sharks], where I screwed it up a little bit by myself there at the end. So, finally.”
The Canucks dropped to 12-13-3.
“Another opportunity we didn’t take advantage of,” coach Bruce Boudreau said. “I don’t know why we came out of the gate slow. We should have been ready to pounce. They played last night and we didn’t and we let them come to us.”
The Wild took all the lead they needed in the first period on a power play strike from Matt Boldy.
“[Mats Zuccarello] found a lane, got it down to the net and it just kind of squirted right to me and I put it in; pretty simple,” Boldy said. “Getting that win was big for us just momentum-wise and kind of getting our heads back in the right space.”
The Canucks outshot the Wild, 19-7, in the middle frame and still found themselves trailing.
“I tried to be patient first on that and then the rebound popped out there to the right and usually the pucks kind of stay low on those rebounds, so I just tried to slide there as fast as I could and I was there in time,” Gustavsson said.
Connor Dewar scored a shorthanded breakaway goal for the 2-0 lead at 16:08.
“He’s really fast out there and shooters shoot,” Gustavsson said. “It looks good.”
In the third, Sam Steel pushed the lead to 3-0 at 8:51.
“We talked today about how many goals we’ve given up,” Evason said. “It obviously starts with your goaltender. ‘Gus’ played great and then our defense was real good about clearing those pucks, and we blocked a lot of shots too.”
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Spencer Martin made 30 saves in the Vancouver loss.
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