Wild defeat Sharks, 5-2, celebrate Marleau

In St Paul, Kaapo Kahkonen made 26 saves and the Minnesota Wild defeated the San Jose Sharks, 5-2, on Saturday.

Kaapo Kahkonen made 26 saves to earn the win.

“It was a great team effort by everybody up and down our lineup by scoring great goals and playing great defense in front making it way or really easy for me,” Kahkonen said.

The game featured Patrick Marleau who iced in his 1,767th game, he tied Gordie Howe for most in NHL history.

“You want things to be going well, you want your team winning at all times, regardless of milestones or not,” Marleau said. “It’d be nice to get back on track and feeling good about ourselves as a club. We’ve shown at times some pretty good hockey, the right way to play. we have to make sure we do that for a full 60 [minutes].

“When you get recognized like that, not only your team standing up for you but the other building’s fans cheering for you, the other team doing it, it hits home. It’s definitely humbling for them to show their support for me.”

He can set the new record Monday when the Sharks face the Vegas Golden Knights on The Strip.

Brent Burns opened the scoring in the game in the first period to give San Jose a 1-0 lead, and Joel Kellman struck late in the third third period to close out the scoring.

“It’s disappointing to play a game like that any night,” Burns said. “Obviously, what [Marleau’s] doing is special and it’s beyond one game. Tonight’s big for him and for all of us to be a part of something like that, it’s incredible. It’s bigger than one game. What he’s doing is incredible. It’s disappointing to be a part of that game anytime.”

Mats Zuccarello scored (power play) once and had tow points on the night; his goal tied the game, 1-1.

Joel Eriksson Ek made it 2-1 in the opening frame.

“Pretty good all-around game, except probably I don’t know five, six minutes there in the second period where you know they’re going to have a push and we kind of fed into that with a few turnovers as well,” Wild head coach Dean Evason said. “But for the most part, we were happy with the group.”

Zach Parise finished the scoring in th opening frame to make it 3-1.

“The goals against in succession, they’re happening too quick back-to-back together, instead of regrouping and holding them to just that one,” Sharks head coach Bob Boughner said. “We’re making the big mistakes right now that end up in the back of our net.”

Kirill Kaprizov scored pushed the lead to 4-1.

“We’re all competitive guys and we want to win and want to be productive,” Parise said. “You want to earn more ice time and you want to force the coach to play you more because you’re playing well. We have had a good stretch the last few games with the three of us.”

Nico Sturm added a goal with less than a minute on the second period clock, for a 5-1 lead.

Martin Jones got the start for the Sharks, but yielded five goals and made 19 saves.