In St Paul, Ryan Hartman hit for a double for the Wild on Tuesday in a 2-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings.
“I’m getting a lot more odd-man rushes than earlier in the year,” Hartman said. “We’re getting opportunities to score and shooting opportunities from good areas, [and] that wasn’t really the case before. Had a chance to score one on the other side before the second goal; it just hit his glove. So, it’s nice to get inside there.”
For Minnesota, it was their third straight win.
Filip Gustavsson made 33 saves in the Minnesota win.
“[The homestand] started off tough,” Gustavsson said. “We were out of the wild card spot (in the Western Conference), we had a little dip in our confidence. It didn’t feel like the bounces went our way. We had to kind of force it.
“Just get more people to the net. Get more shots there, and then give them less opportunities to score on us. We got one-goal wins, and that’s what we need to get it back.”
The Wild improved to 31-21-5.
“What we liked is [Hartman’s] speed, his work, his drive,” Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. “He put himself in a position to do it. We’ve watched him and seen him. It was really good.”
After a scoreless first period, Hartman hit for his first of the night with 13 seconds of fresh ice used in the middle frame.
Gustavsson held that lead up until Hartman scored his double in the 16th minute of the third for a 2+0 advantage.
Los Angles dropped to 32-19-7.
“We’re leaving here without any points, but I thought we played a pretty good game,” Kings coach Todd McLellan said. “We played hard, we created a number of chances. … We’ve just got to find a way to convert, and some nights it doesn’t go your way.
“But I didn’t think we had a lot of passengers. We had everybody engaged in the game, so we’ll chalk it up, we’ll move on and try to recover for the next one.”
Anze Kopitar scored with 21 seconds left on the game clock to ruin the shutout bid.
“We got some good [offensive]-zone time, we just couldn’t get it to go,” said Kopitar. “Their goalie played good. Give them credit with where credit is due.”
Pheonix Copley made 18 saves in the LA loss.
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