In Winnipeg, The Minnesota Wild took a 2-0 lead in their game with the Jets on Wednesday, then held on for a 4-2 win.
The Wild are 9–2 in their last 11 games.
Marc-Andre Fleury made 46 saves in the Wild win.
“Our goaltender won the hockey game for us,” Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. “Goaltenders come up big, and obviously ‘Flower’ was huge for us here tonight.”
The Wild took a 1-0 lead in the first period on a goal from Marcus Foligno.
“I thought the guys defended well and covered the middle of the slot a lot and not give them too many Grade A’s,” Fleury said. “They blocked some shots and cleared pucks away, and obviously some nice goals up front to get the lead there.”
Frederick Gaudreau extended the advantage to 2-0 in the second period.
Winnipeg dropped to 36-26-3.
“It’s one of the best games we’ve played all year,” Jets coach Rick Bowness said. “We dominated the game, 82 shot attempts. I don’t know if we’ve done that this year. Lots of scoring chances. Fleury was outstanding. A lot of loose pucks we couldn’t get our sticks to, but that’s one of the best games we’ve played all year. If we play like that, we’ll take it. Some nights you just don’t get any puck luck, and right now we’re not getting any puck luck. But I’ll take that effort.
“We’re still sitting in a playoff spot. We just have to play like that. We know what we’re up against. We haven’t lost that eighth spot right now, so we have to fight to keep it.”
Just 30 seconds after the Wild went up by two, Logan Stanley scored to trim the deficit to 2-1. for the Jets.
“It was good by [Vladislav Namestnikov] to get it on net. It was an easy one for me to put in,” Stanley said. “It’s disappointing to come away with the loss. We thought we played good and did a lot of good things. There is definitely a lot of stuff we can build on.”
Minnesota’s Ryan Hartman scored to get that goal back for a 3-1 lead.
“Those three goals in the middle second, that was nice and you can relax a bit,” Fleury said. “When you get the lead, you don’t have to force plays to come back into the game. I think everybody took care of the rest and all through to the end of the game.”
Winnipeg’s Nino Niederreiter then scored at 17:15 to send the game to the third period with the Wild up, 3-2.
“There’s a lot of fight,” Jets forward Kyle Connor said. “We’re going to stick with it. We’re going to keep pushing. There’s no quit in here. Not a single guy. Even the guys out of the lineup, they come in and do a great job. We know we have a great team here, we just got to put it together. We’re on that trajectory. The last couple games have been a [heck] of a lot better, so we got to keep building, keep getting better and look for the next one.”
The Wild’s Mason Shaw scored into an empty net for the 4-2 final with 38 seconds left on the clock.
Connor Hellebuyck made 19 saves in the Jets loss.
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