Wild hold off Bruins for 3-2 win Fleury makes 19 saves for win

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In St Paul, the Wild benefited from an own goal by the Boston Bruins on Saturday in a 3-2 win.

Joel Eriksson Ek was credited with a goal at 5:57 of the middle frame to tie the game, 1-1. The strike was off the power play on his shot from the right point.

The puck ended up the Bruins cage on an errant handle by Boston’s Brandon Cairo.

Marc-Andre Fleury made 19 saves in the win.

The Wild improved to 15-13-4.

Boston took a 1-0 lead at 2:37 of the opening stanza on a power play marker from David Pastrnak.

“Hard to win in this league if you give up so many penalties,” Pastrnak said. “We definitely have to be more disciplined.”

Boston dropped to 19-7-7 off their fourth straight loss.

“I liked the first 15 minutes of our game, and I liked the last 10 minutes of our game,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “We just need more concerted effort. People [have] got to stay in the moment. They can’t worry about their previous shift or worry about what’s happening in five minutes. They’ve got to focus and reset and go out there for that next shift. As a staff, we’ve got to do a better job here of making sure guys stay in the moment.”

Minnesota claimed the lead, 2-1 on a goal from Kirill Kaprizov  at 7:22 of the second period,

Since I’ve been here, I haven’t seen a difference in [Kaprizov’s] game,” Minnesota coach John Hynes said. “For me, I would just say that he’s getting rewarded for it. There were a couple times, maybe the first few games we were here, I was getting the same questions about Kirill. But the production wasn’t there, but his game was there. And now you’re getting the production.

“I think when you’re an elite player like him, and you play the game the right way and play to the style of game that he has, it’s kind of what I said, it wasn’t ‘if.’ It was going to be ‘when’ — when those points were going to come in, and his production was going to come, and now it’s here.”

Marcus Foligno scored what would become the game-winner at 3:10 of the third period  for a 3-1 lead to the Wild.

“You’ve got to like the second period,” Foligno said. “I thought it was complete domination there, and then the first part of the third, I thought we were good.”

Boston’s Morgan Geekie hit for a marker at 13:53 of the third to get the Bruins within 3-2, but that was all the offense they had left.

“Will and compete is what it comes down to,” Boston’s Brad Marchand said. “Seems like we’re losing a lot of battles that we should be winning. We’re not having that second effort, where when you watch the tape back and you see the second effort and compete level that other teams have right now that are doing well and having success. We need to up it right now.”

Linus Ullmark made 32 saves in the loss.