In St Paul on Saturday, the Minnesota Wild got two goals from Eric Staal in a solid, 4-1, over the visiting Philadelphia Flyers.
Alex Stalock made 17 saves in the win, Minnesota is 7-1-1 in their last nine.
“It’s always been an extremely difficult place for other teams to play, and we wanted to get back to that,” Staal said. “In order to do that, you have to provide results and get the job done, and we’ve done that here lately. When you have that streak going and that momentum, you just want to ride it as long as you can.”
James van Riemsdyk had the lone goal for the Flyers.
“I’ve said it since Day One, this group has not ever been an underdog group going into the year. It wasn’t must-win, get-to-the-Stanley-Cup year,” Stalock said. “That’s what people were saying for this group. They’ve had it on their shoulders for how many years. To come in being underdogs, I think it’s fitting for this group, for people to count us out and for us to kind of say we still got it here.”
The Flyers have lost three of their last four games.
“At the end of the day, we had a couple power plays at the end, we’ve got our top players on the ice,” Flyers coach Alain Vigneault said. “They’ve got to find a way to execute and make the other team pay when you’ve got that opportunity. We were right there. We were a shot away from making this a game and had our best players on the ice, and they need to find a way to get it done for us.”
Zach Parise and Carson Soucy also scored for the Wild.
“[We’re] resilient,” Minnesota coach Bruce Boudreau said. “Look it, [Philadelphia] got that one goal-against right away, and then we came back again and constantly pressured them at that point. I thought that was a really good sign. We don’t seem to get like big air out of our breath when they score. It’s like you can hear it on the bench like, ‘OK. Let’s get back, let’s get back at it.'”
[WATCH: All Flyers vs. Wild highlights]
Carter Hart made 23 saves in the loss.
The Flyers lost two forwards in the first period and iced only 10 for the final 40 minutes.
“The only thing we can do is what’s in our control, prepare those guys, whoever’s coming. Whoever’s going to be in the lineup, be ready to go. We need two points bad,” Shayne Gostisbehere said.
You must be logged in to post a comment.