In St Paul, Kirill Kaprizov scored once and had four points on Friday night, in a 6-3 win for the Wild over the Seattle Kraken.
Kaprizov has 1-1 points through 77 games.
“It’s a huge accomplishment,” Kaprizov said. “A huge thank you to the fans, my teammates, the organization. Obviously, it’s a huge accomplishment, I’m extremely thankful and happy. Obviously, getting the team win was super important and made everything that much more sweet.”
Marc-Andre Fleury made 25 saves in the Wild win.
“There were a lot of different things that happened tonight as far as individual milestones and all that kind of stuff, but our group doesn’t really care about that,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “We talked that they were, Kirill and Kevin, they were more excited when [Nicolas Deslauriers] scored than anything, right? That shows you the group is really tight and playing for the right reasons.”
Daniel Sprong and Yanni Gourde scored to give Seattle a 2-0 lead in the game.
“The second period, they were a team that was playing for a playoff position and seeding, and they played for real,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “We played 20 minutes of shinny hockey. That’s the bottom line.
“You can argue the first and third periods were OK, but it’s a 60-minute tilt, it’s a 60-minute game, and we weren’t close to this team tonight. That’s disappointing for us.”
Joel Eriksson Ek hit for a double to tie the game, 2-2.
“Getting the power-play goal, of course, helped us get back into the game,” Eriksson Ek said. “Our start was slow. We didn’t really make the best decisions, from us forwards jumping into the play, or from our defense pinching at the wrong times, but I think in the second we got going. We played better as a team and then stayed together and supported each other.”
Kaprizov, Ryan Hartman, and Mats Zuccarello put the Wild up 5-2.
Matty Beniers also scored for the Kraken.
“They’re a good team,” Beniers said. ” I think a lot of their offense was self-inflicted. We kind of gave it to them. When you play a team like that, they’re going to bury it and make you pay for it. That was a lot of the night.”
Deslauriers’ goal closed out the scoring for the 6-3 final.
Philipp Grubauer made 29 saves in the Seattle loss.
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