In St Pail, Kaapo Kahkonen made 26 saves for his first NHL shutout, 2-0, over the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday night.
“Kahkonen was outstanding,” Wild head coach Dean Evason said. “It was such a grinding game tonight, but he was just very calm, very solid, obviously very good. It was a bit of an ugly game, but two points is two points.”
Kevin Fiala scored in the first period to give Kahkonen some early support.
“It was a great team win,” Kahkonen said. “… It’s just the daily work I believe that matters and doing those little things right, and that will get you there.”
Vegas dropped to 16-5-1.
“I thought we battled hard, I thought we had good energy,” Vegas head coach Peter DeBoer said. “The fact the last 40 minutes was better than our first 20 tells me we still have gas in the tank. You can’t hide the fact that we got some key guys out, but I think there’s a lot of teams dealing with that. We have a good enough group to get the job done tonight. It was a hard-fought game. We’ve got to find a way to get a goal. We did a lot of good things defensively and obviously in the net.”
Minnesota pushed their record to 14-8-1.
Jonas Brodin added an empty net strike in the third period.
“We have to stay on, aggressive,” Fiala said. “If it’s [a] 1-0 game, we have to go for the next one. I feel this league is too good. If we sit back and just try to play defense, I feel like it’s not going to go well.
“I feel tonight we did a good job. [Kahkonen] again, not just tonight, he’s [been] unbelievable all season long.”
Marc-Andre Fleury made 20 saves in the loss.
“I think tonight they defended well, capitalized early in the game and we just couldn’t get it back,” Fleury said. “Close game all night long.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.