A few years ago the Minnesota Wild had a penchant for scoring late in games to steal points.
On Thursday night, they reverted to form in a 4-2 win over the Vegas Golden Knights in St Paul.
The Wild struck for three goals in the third period for the win.
The ageless Eric Staal had a pair of goals in the win.
“I think any successful team has everybody on the ice playing the right way and playing the same way,” Staal said. “I think collectively the last two games we haven’t done a good enough job of reloading hard and then making the right decisions through the neutral zone. … Tonight I thought we did a lot better job of that, and because of that it was nice to be rewarded with some goals and a win.”
Brayden McNabb and Jonathan Marchessault gave the Knights a 2-1 lead after trailing 1-0.
“You got to be able to play 60 minutes. In this league, if you take even one shift off it’s going to cost you most nights, and I’m not saying we took a shift off [but] if you have the lead in third you got to find a way to win no matter what. Good teams do that, and tonight we didn’t, but luckily we play another game tomorrow and we can redeem ourselves,” Vegas’ Luca Sbisa said after the win.
Mikael Granlund struck in the second period for a 1-0 Wild lead.
Jonas Brodin scored in the third for Minnesota to tie at 2-2.
“I think we could do better, but I liked what I saw much better than the previous two games,” Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau said. “We understand that we’re not going to win a lot of 6-5 games, so we have to win the 4-2, the 3-1, the 2-1 kind of games. And if we play the right way, I thought for especially the first two periods, I thought we played the right way and we had a 1-0 lead.”
Devan Dubnyk made 29 saves to pick up the win.
“I think we’re aware as a group where we’re at. We’re aware as a group what went on the last two games. The important thing is the response. The important thing is to come out and play the way we know we’re capable of, and we did that I thought for the most part all night tonight,” Staal said after the win. “Being smart through the middle of the ice, defending hard, being hard to play against, really doing our best to make the right decisions. We know what’s going to make us successful. We got to make sure we bring that and find that every game.”
[WATCH:Â All Golden Knights vs. Wild highlights]
Malcolm Subban made 28 saves in taking the loss.
“There’s nothing you could do on those goals,” Vegas head coach Gerard Gallant said. “[Subban] made some great saves for us and kept us in that hockey game. I thought he played a great game. He’s getting confident every time he plays so that’s good for our club.”
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