In St Paul, the Minnesota Wild built a 41 lead over the Arizona Coyotes on Sunday afternoon, and very nearly let it all slip away.
Arizona’s Lawson Crouse scored to make it 4-2 with less than four minutes to go in the third period.
“We were just playing with urgency. We know we had to make a push late,” Crouse said. “We gave it all we had and came up one short. Obviously, a good fight back from the group, but we came up one short, so it doesn’t really mean much. ”
J.J. Moser scored less than two minutes later to make it 4-3, but that was as close as the Coyotes could get .
The Wild took a 1-0 lead off a goal from Kirill Kaprizov , who had two assists in the win. He has an active nine-game streak.
“To be honest, I don’t really think to think about that or criticize or talk about my game when it’s going well,” Kaprizov said through a Russian interpreter. “I just kind of play and let the media you yourselves tell me if I’m doing better or not. I focus on my game and just doing the best I can.”
Marc-Andre Fleury made 20 saves in the Minnesota win.
The Wild improved to 10-9-2.
“We have to respect [Arizona], but we wanted to respect who we were, too,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “We thought for the most part we did that. There were a couple of minutes there that we let down, but that team works their butts off and they kept coming. They’re a gritty group, and they got a couple of real good looks and were able to score at the end. We were for the most part real happy with our game.”
Arizona dropped to 7-10-3.
“I think the game was fair,” Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny said. “I think we didn’t play better than them. We came up short by one goal. Really proud of our effort. The second effort, resilience thing. We came back, showed some character. Really happy about that.”
Sam Steel, Jared Spurgeon, and Matt Boldy also scored for Minnesota.
Kaprizov scored in the first period, and Steel pushed the lead to 2-0.
“Sometimes a pass is better than a goal,” Kaprizov said.
Nick Schmaltz cut it to 2-1 in the second period.
Spurgeon hit for a goal with 36 seconds gone in the third period for a 3-1 advantage to the Wild.
Boldy made it 4- in the seventh minute of the third.
“There’s no pass that guy is not making through the seams,” Boldy said. “You kind of see it unfold with how smart he is. Just walking down he knows I’m there. I’ve got to be ready for it for sure.”
Connor Ingram made 24 saves in the coyotes loss.
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