Talbot, Wild nip Vegas

The Minnesota Wild had issues with the San Jose Sharks this week, but so the Vegas Golden Knights.

On Thursday night, the Wild hung a 3-2 loss on Vegas after penalties.

Cam Talbot made 35 saves, to earn the win on the Strip.

“Every game is a big game, and when you come into a building like this, you know you’re going to have to go through this team to make it out of our division for the playoffs,” Talbot said. “This is a tough building to play in and this gives us confidence moving forward.”

The Wild improved to 22-11-2.

Kevin Fiala was credited with the deciding goal in the skills competition.

“That was not a fun hockey game. I joke, obviously it was an exciting hockey game,” Wild head coach Dean Evason said. “We made it harder on ourselves in a lot of different situations … but they tried their butts off, including our goaltender, who saved our butts.”

William Karlsson and Brayden McNabb were the Vegas strikers.

Kirill Kaprizov scored for Minnesota.

Jared Spurgeon scored in the third period to tie the game for the Wild, at 2-2.

“It doesn’t surprise us, Cam saved our bacon again,” Evason said. “We worked hard, we competed, we battled. We cannot continue to put ourselves and our goaltenders in that position. We got our hands full in a couple of days playing these guys again.”

Robin Lehner made 35 saves in the loss.

“It’s disappointing, for sure,” McNabb said. “You want two points. Their goalie played well. It’s a tough one to swallow. It’s a big deal we got one, and we’ll do it again Saturday.”