In St Paul, the Minnesota Wild got big games from Mats Zuccarello and Eric Staal who collected two points each on a goal and assist in a 4-2 win over the visiting Detroit Red Wings.
“I wasn’t very happy after the first period,” Wild coach Bruce Boudreau said. “They put 12 minutes together and got the lead and sort of held on. I think we went about 20 minutes without a shot. You can’t do that too often and win.”
Devan Dubnyk made 25 saves in the win.
Filip Zadina scored both Detroit goals in the loss.
The Red Wings are 05-1 in their last six games.
“I didn’t have the concern [about our performance heading into the break] because I can’t imagine, I can’t fathom how that could be possible with where we’re at and the number of games that we’ve won,” Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said. “How do you let any game slip away at all? How do you not make sure you’re ready to go? But that wasn’t the case.”
Detroit held a 2-1 lead in the game.
Jason Zucker and Jordan Greenway also scored for the Wild.
“You always want to extend [the lead] even further,” Staal said. “I thought that even in the third you could make it five [goals] and really put the nail in the coffin, but we still played a relatively smart game there in the third period. When [Dubnyk] had to make a couple saves, he did. We were just happy to get the two points in the end.”
[WATCH: All Red Wings vs. Wild highlights]
Jimmy Howard made 29 saves in the loss.
“I thought we had some guys who weren’t ready to play at the start of the game,” Blashill said. “It was kind of a little bit of fool’s gold in the first; some guys were going, some guys just weren’t ready to go. It catches up to you as the game goes along and it caught up to us.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.