In St Paul Sunday, Devan Dubnyk made 28 saves to help the Minnesota Wild to a 4-1 win over the visiting Detroit Red Wings.
“When we play our game, we can dominant. We can overwhelm teams,” Dubnyk said. “It’s not anything special, it’s not Harlem Globetrotters stuff. It’s just how good we compete when every single line plays hard and plays the right way, and that’s the group that we have in here.
“We have to trust that and understand how important every game is and make sure we’re ready to do that at the start every night.”
The Wild overcame an early goal from Justin Abdelkader to score two in the second and two in the third.
“We aren’t finding ways to win right now, we’re finding ways to lose,” Red Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg said.
With the win, the Wild moved into third place in the Central Division.
“[March] is not an easy month for us, and I think you could tell in the first period there were guys that didn’t have a lot of jump,” Wild coach Bruce Boudreau said. “But they willed it out of them just to get through the game.”
Jason Zucker struck twice for Minnesota and Zach Parise kicked in a goal on the night.
“When you’re scoring one or two a game, it’s tough to win in this league,” Adbelkader said. “Obviously games are running out but at the same time, we’ll have to go out [and] we’ll have to play hard each and every game.”
Eric Staal scored his 34th of the season in the win.
“A win helps, there’s no question. It’s a little bit of a step back on the road trip [with back-to-back losses], but it was good we were able to rebound after the first period [tonight] and just play a little better than we had been,” Parise said after the game.
[WATCH: All Red Wings vs. Wild highlights]
Jimmy Howard made 23 saves in taking the loss.
“It’s an easy time for frustration to build up and there’s nothing wrong with being frustrated now, and [we] should be. If you’re not, you probably shouldn’t be a competitor,” Detroit head coach Jeff Blashill said after the loss. “We’ll have to regroup tomorrow and understand there’s not one thing we can do about it except learn from it and be better on Tuesday [at the Boston Bruins] and find a way to win. Winning games is important, and we’ve got to find a way to win Tuesday.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.