In St Paul, Cam Talbot made 21 saves and the Minnesota Wild defeated the Arizona Coyotes o Sunday afternoon, 4-1.
Kevin Fiala had a goal and two points for the winners.
“It wasn’t a pretty game,” Fiala said. “But the most important thing is that we stick together. We have a belief in the room that we are going to win. It doesn’t matter what happens. We have done it a lot of times this season. It’s just a great feeling. You kind of feel that we’re knowing that we win.”
Phil Kessel broke the ice in the first period to give the Coyotes a 1-0 lead.
“They spread it out and they want to play 1-on-1 hockey and they get their D involved a lot because they get zone time doing that,” the Coyotes’ Alex Goligoski said. “For us, against lines like that, you got to go maybe a little bit more man on man and stay tight on your guys.”
Victor Rask, Nick Bonino and Joel Eriksson Ek also scored for the Wild.
“We’ve had a few obviously since the Vegas games we’ve talked about how grindy those games were,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “I gotta reiterate how good the teams are in this League. It’s a battle every night.
“The game tonight was hanging in the balance for a long time. It was there for either team if you caught a break or a bounce. It’s good that the guys are seeing games like this and obviously having success we can reinforce a lot of things that we’re doing to stay patient and positive.”
Minnesota improved to 17-8-1.
“[Minnesota is] getting the big moment and they’re scoring,” Coyotes head coach Rick Tocchet said. “Big moments, we have a lot of guys struggling. We just have to make sure we don’t have guys feeling like they’re defeated.
“We’re .500 now. There’s 28 games left. We can’t feel defeated. We’ve got to score some goals.”
Antti Raanta made 31 saves in the loss.
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