In St Paul, Ryan Johansen scored twice and Roman Josi added a single marker in the first period on Sunday to power the Nashville Predators to a 5-2 win over the Wild.
Connor Ingram made 33 saves for the Nashville victory.
“It was a good performance today from everyone,” Ingram said. “I still don’t think it’s hit me a little bit. Ignorance is bliss at this point where you don’t really realize what’s going on yet, but it felt good.”
Minnesota got on the board in the middle frame with two goals from Nick Bjugstad and Nico Sturm.
“Our energy has been real good up to this point. For whatever reason, we had nothing there tonight,” Wild head coach Dean Evason said. “To put a finger on it, I don’t know. They played last night, too. we should have had more than we had tonight.”
Minnesota lost for the first time this season after winning its first four games.
Nashville kept pace in the second period with goals from Filip Forsberg and Tanner Jeannot.
Nashville improved to 2-4-0.
“[We] definitely wanted to keep going and not let them come back,” Josi said. “We knew how dangerous they were. Although they got the first goal in the second, I thought we did a good job still creating chances, still being aggressive and I think that was key.”
The Predators held a 5-1 advantage in the second period until Sturm scored with just over two seconds left in the frame.
“We’ve talked with our group that you’re going to go through an 82-game season and there’s times where you’re playing pretty well and you have substance in your game but maybe you’re not finding ways to win or goals aren’t going in,” Predators head coach John Hynes said. “I think if you stay with it, which our guys did, you’re eventually going to get rewarded. I think there was real true, honest belief and assessment in our game and in our locker room and tonight I think we put together that effort.”
Matt Duchene pitched in three assist for the Preds.
Kaapo Kahkonen made 24 saves in the loss.
“I think today was one of those nights where it’s like the harder we tried it seemed like we were kind of spinning the wheels in the sand there,” Sturm said. “It was like the harder we tried the less it seemed like it was going to go our way. We just didn’t keep it simple enough, and just overall did a poor job playing in front of Kaapo.”
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