In St Paul, the Wild’s Kirill Kaprizov scored with less than three minutes left in regulation on Saturday afternoon to tie the game with the Anaheim Ducks, 4-4, and force extra time, which solved nothing.
Kaprizov scored the only goal on penalties to give the Wild a 5-4 win.
“I’m surprised every time, but I’m not surprised anymore, you know what I mean?” Wild forward Jordan Greenway said of Kaprizov. “He finds a way. You have to think the coaches are like, ‘Stay with Kirill,’ right? And he still finds a way to get open. It’s crazy.”
Filip Gustavsson made 29 saves in the Wild win.
“We’re going to take two points, for sure,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “Two periods, we were not very good and they were good. They went to the net. They played hard. They scored their three goals in two periods … were tips, were screens at the net. They did exactly what we want to do. We played a perimeter game not willing to get to that area, and we almost got hurt by it. In the third period, we realized well, maybe we should play the right way. We were able to come back, and we’re very fortunate that the game wasn’t out of hand by the time we got to the third period.”
Minnesota improved to 12-9-2.
Ryan Strome had a goal for the Ducks in the first period, his strike tied the game, 1-1, after the Wild opened the scoring on a marker from Calen Addison
Connor Dewar restored the lead for the Wild before the end of the first period, 2-1.
“It’s one of those games like, man, you really want to get both points so that the team can feel rewarded for a good road game,” Ducks coach Dallas Eakins said. “Overall, we did a great job. Goaltending was excellent straight across the board, and those are important to try to get both points, so there’s a reward. But coming into a building like this and grabbing a point is certainly a step in the right direction. And we still have a chance to get .500 on the road here.”
Cam Fowler tied the game, 2-2, in the middle frame.
“Gus didn’t see pucks or you get tipped,” Evason said. “He’s in position. He did his job, but we didn’t do our job, and more importantly, they did their job as far as getting to the net and getting pucks there and were able to score the goals. It’s not Gus, that’s for sure.”
Anaheim dropped to 6-16-3.
Trevor Zegras put the Ducks ahead, 3-2 with a minute left in the second period.
The Wild’s Joel Eriksson Ek knotted it, 3-3, in the sixth minute of the third.
Troy Terry reclaimed the lead for the Ducks midway through the third, at 4-3.
John Gibson made 43 saves in the Ducks loss.
“Tonight, I thought we got a lead and we had a lot of really good chances to make that a two-goal game,” Terry said. “And I think that’s what a lot of these good teams do. They’re up on you, and when you start taking chances, you’re going to give up some and they bury you and then they go up two or three. … We had a few chances where we could have put the game away.”
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