In Glendale, Cam Talbot made 39 saves for the Minnesota Wild in a 4-1 win over the Coyotes on Wednesday night.
Marcus Foligno scored the first of three third period goals for the Wild to snap a 1-1 tie tie and give the Wild the lead.
“When you can win as many games as you can against one certain team, it’s huge,” Foligno said. “We just played simple (against Arizona), we played hard hockey, a lot of physicality and a lot of depth. It’s been a lot of fun playing these guys.
Arizona has lost seven of its last eight matches and are losing points in their race for the fourth spot in Western Division.
“We deserved a better fate, but it’s a game of results,” Coyotes head coach Rick Tocchet said. “It’s frustrating, I thought we played well, but they scored their goals when they had their chances.”
Christian Dvorak was the lone goal scorer for the Coyotes; his goal gave the Coyotes an early 1-0 lead.
“I thought we played well, but you’ve got to put the puck in the net,” Arizona’s Niklas Hjalmarsson said.
The Wild remain in third place in the West.
“It’s the best time of the year, this is where you have to start building for the playoffs and ramping up your game and making sure that you’re tightening up the little areas that you can tighten up before the playoffs,” Talbot said.
Kevin Fiala scored in the middle frame to get the game even ed up at 1-1 heading to the third period.
Minnesota improved to 29-13-3.
“Our (line’s) breakouts have been kind of sloppy, not a lot of possession coming out, so we actually talked about … how I have to kind of slash through and kind of push the D back,” Foligno said. “‘Ekker’ made a great backhand pass that kind of caught their guy off guard — I think they had a forward back there — and so I just put the burners on, skated as hard as I could, and then shot it as hard as I could, and luckily it went in.”
Kirill Kaprizov also scored in the third period for the Wild, his strike made it, 3-1.
“It’s undeniable that he’s taken this team and moved it to the next level with his play,” Minnesota’s Nico Sturm said. “He fights off guys on the boards, he’s so strong. That’s just really impressive what he’s done this year.”
Sturm potted an empty-net goal to ice the win.
“The confidence we have in Cam, it’s huge for our team,” Foligno said. “We looked like we didn’t have our legs, but when you have a goaltender that can do that for you … we can be dangerous in the third period and steal some points.”
Darcy Kuemper made 19 saves in the loss.
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