In St Paul Tuesday night, the Minnesota Wild continued their home ice winning ways with a 5-1 win over the visiting Florida Panthers.
Matt Cullen and Eric Staal each struck twice in the win.
Devan Dubnyk made 25 saves to help the Wild upend the Florida Panthers, 5-1, Tuesday night in St Paul – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
“I think we did a good job of getting in on pucks and hanging on to them,” Cullen said. “Trying to force them to defend and spend time in their end and wear them down … For us to be successful, that will have be part of our game every night.”
Devan Dubnyk made 25 saves for the win.
Jonathan Huberdeau had the lone goal for the Panthers who saw their five-game win streak snapped.
“The better team won,” Florida head coach Bob Boughner said. “We didn’t deserve it. We had a couple early shifts that we OK, and after that we shot ourselves in the foot. Everything we talked about backfired tonight. There was no execution, and worse than that there wasn’t a heck of a lot of compete for 40 minutes. By the time we turned it on a little bit and changed things in the third, it was just too late.”
Charlie Coyle completed the scoring with an empty-netter in the third period.
Zach Parise took the ice for the fist time this season with the Wild; he had surgery in October for back issues.
“I felt really good from the start,” Parise said. “There’s still some plays that you’d like to have back off entries, but that’ll come. Kind of relearning different spots on the ice where you get pressured. But that’ll come. Conditioning-wise, everything else actually felt really good.”
The Wild improved to 21-16-3.
“When you get your full lineup, close to anyways, you can see what we all sort of envisioned at the beginning of the season. Obviously, missing Zach [Parise] and missing Nino [Niederreiter] is a big deal, so getting Zach back is a huge piece and it allows our depth to shine through,” Cullen said after the win.
[WATCH: All Panthers vs. Wild highlights]
James Reimer got the start for the Panthers but left the game midway through the middle frame after a collision.
Rookie Harri Sateri relieved Reimer in his NHL debut and made 13 saves over his time in net.
“It was important for [Sateri] to finally get some minutes,” Boughner said. “I was thinking about when on this road trip we might get him in there eventually. [Reimer] has been on a roll, but it’s good to see Harri get some ice time, not under those circumstances, of course, but he held up well and that’s good to see.
“That’s what upset me more than anything is that Harri has been a good soldier and a good teammate. He’s been working hard and we allowed eight shots in three minutes as soon as he got in there. Unacceptable.”
Reimer did return to the game after about three minutes but was given the hook in the4 second intermission.
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