In St Paul, the Wild saw their 14-game point streak evaporate i a 5-2 loss to the Boston Bruins in a Saturday matinee.
Marcus Johansson staked the Wild to a 1-0 lead in the first period, and that was as good as it got.
Jake DeBrusk tied it, 1-1, to send the game to the second period that way.
Linus Ullmark made 29 saves in the Bruins win.
“Usually when we play tough teams and teams who’ve been doing well, we get to our game right away because we know we have to,” Bruins forward Charlie Coyle said. “So, usually our start is on. Whether we score the first goal or not, we just stay at it. We do the right things. We play simple and you see when we do that, we kind of take over.”
Boston improved to 52-11-5.
“We were happy with a lot of things that we did,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “We can correct some things on the three even-strength goals. They had a penalty kill and then an empty net (goal). There’s some initiatives, some sticks on pucks that we could have did and/or closing on all three (goals) that we could have probably got out of it before they end up in our net. We got some stuff that we can address before tomorrow’s game.”
Minnesota dropped to 39-22-8.
“Game of inches,” Minnesota’s Matt Dumba said. “Those go the other way … we’re in the saddle right where we want to be. And that’s not making excuses for us. It just simply shows [the Bruins are] the best in the League. We’re right there, we’re right there. We made it hard on them.”
David Pastrnak and David Krejci scored in the middle frame to give the Bruins a 3-1 lead.
“It’s not often you let in two extra goals and still come out with the win,” Ullmark said. “You got to give credit to (video coaches) for catching that. It was huge. They got a couple of momentum swings. We got it right back and we go up to 3-1, which basically speaks for itself.
“It always feels weird because as a goalie like, ‘OK, I let in three now.’ All of a sudden, you look up at the clock and realize, ‘No, I didn’t.'”
Oskar Sundqvist trimmed the deficit for the Wild to 3-2 when he scored at 7:17 of the third..
But Boston scored twice, late in the period, to seal the win.
Patrice Bergeron scored at 12:22 to make it 4-2, and Trent Frederic hit an empty net for the 5-2 final with just two minutes left in the third for the 5-2 final.
“I thought Bergeron’s line set the tone for us,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said. “A couple of great forechecking goals. I thought everybody was involved, but I liked our game management. … That unselfishness that we’ve seen throughout the year was very evident tonight.”
Filip Gustavsson made 33 saves in the Wild loss.
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