In Vancouver, Kirill Kaprizov‘s second goal of the game gave the Minnesota Wild a 2-1 lead over the Canucks in the middle frame on Thursday night.
Marc-Andre Fleury made 21 saves and protected that slim lead for the 2-1 final score and win.
“It’s good that we’re going through this,” said Fleury. “I think every game will get a little tighter around the League. That’s essential to make playoffs and playoff hockey, that’s all it is, one-goal games a lot of times and we feel comfortable playing those.”
The Wild improved to 35-21-6.
“Our goaltenders have held us in crucial times,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “When there’s an opportunity for them, they make a big save to keep us where we’re at and how we’re playing. If they don’t, it would be easy for us to maybe get frustrated or try to open up.”
Kaprizov has been a tear of late with eight goals and nine points in seven games.
“Would we like to score more goals? Would we like someone else to score besides Kirill?” Evason said. “Sure, but we’re still not pressing so much that we’re giving up odd-man rushes and opportunities the other way. Our patience was real good tonight.”
He has scored five of the most recent seven goals by the Wild.
The Canucks dropped to 24-32-5.
“We didn’t have an answer for No. 97,” Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet said of Kaprizov. “Man, he’s a [heck] of a player; he was a difference maker. Guys are trying. He’s a world-class guy. I think we could have played through him a little bit more. You can’t [stop] him, obviously, he’s shifty. But I think we could have doubled up a little bit more in the [defensive] zone.”
Kaprizov opened the scoring with just 46 seconds of clean ice used for a 1-0 lead.
Vancouver replied with a strike from Brock Boeser for a 1-1 tie.
“It was a great play by him,” Boeser said of Kravtsov. “I think he saw the lane, made the pass and luckily I put it in the net. We weren’t great in the first. In the second period, we responded well, and really just couldn’t get anything going in the third.
“There are definitely some parts of our game that are pretty sloppy and we gave them some odd-man rushes, so we definitely need to clean up that aspect of it.”
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Thatcher Demko made 34 saves in the Vancouver loss.
“I tried to take a couple more steps tonight, which I thought I did,” Demko said. “I still have some steps to take, but I felt good. Obviously, we want to get the win and we knew it was going to be a tight, low-scoring game and it didn’t go our way, but I thought we did some good things.”
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