In St Paul, the Wild’s Ryan Hartman scored with 21 seconds left n the clock in the third period to give Minnesota a 4-3 win over the Nashville Predators on Sunday afternoon.
“When we’re up 3-1 there with less than 10 minutes to go and they come back to 3-3, it’s always mentally tough there,” Minnesota goalie Filip Gustavsson said. “‘Hartzy’ came through there with 4-3 with 20 seconds left.
“It’s a huge relief that we don’t have to play overtime again.”
The win was the second straight for Minnesota.
Gustavsson made 23 saves in the win.
The Wild improved to 30-21-5.
“We’ve talked about that before that we weren’t getting pucks [to the net],” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “We’re still getting pucks there. Our group is still playing Minnesota Wild hockey, that we’re gritty, we’re getting to the net. Those pucks just weren’t getting there. Now we’re getting a few pucks there. We’re there, so you’re collecting them or they’re getting shot off your butt, which is fine.”
Hartman scored 20 seconds after Nino Niederreiter had scored for the Predators to tie the game, 3-3.
“I feel like we were pressing hard, and we had enough chances to kind of get the tying goal,” Niederreiter said. “Huge it went in, and then an unfortunate bounce at the end. The way that went in is unfortunate.”
Kirill Kaprizov hit for a double in the game, his second period goal gave the Wild a 2-0 lead, and his strike in the third frame gave them a 3-1 advantage.
“Really happy we got the win, but ultimately it was too close,” Kaprizov said. “We need to find a way to win clean, not make it a chaotic end like that. Whether it be on the power play, get the goal when we need to, but yeah, good win.”
Brandon Duhaime scored nine seconds into the middle frame to give the Wild a 1-0 lead.
The Predators dropped to 26-22-6.
Nashville closed the gap to 2-1 in the middle frame on a goal from Tommy Novak .
“Sometimes you just go through ebbs and flows, shots going in,” said Novak. “My linemates have been playing really good with me the last two games. Got a bounce to get a 2-on-1 today, and ended up going in. I think just trying to play hard every shift and trying to keep consistently high level of play.”
Roman Josi scored at 15:04 of the third period to cut the Wild lead to 3-2.
“I liked it was a competitive hockey game,” Predators coach John Hynes said. “I thought both teams played hard games, and it’s a tough way to lose the game. But I liked that we pushed from behind … and tied the game up, and unfortunate bounce on the game-winner.”
Juuse Saros made 31 saves in the Nashville loss.
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