The Minnesota Wild broke out the scoring sticks Tuesday night in a 7-1 victory over the visiting Montreal Canadiens.
Matt Dumba struck twice and the Wild were perfect in four power play chances.
“I think after that game in Edmonton (7-2 loss on Dec. 7), I think that all the boys had on their mind was kind of redeeming ourselves,” Dumba said. “I’m sure we would have wanted honestly the day after to get right after it, but it was good that we took the days to rest and have a good practice and everything came together and worked out for us tonight.”
Devan Dubnyk made 29 saves in the win as the Wild improved to 16-12-2.
Jeff Petry scored the lone goal for the Habs.
“The penalty kill, the power play was minus-1 and the 5-on-5 weren’t any better, so it just kind of goes hand in hand with the game we played tonight,” Canadiens coach Claude Julien said.
Eric Staal, Jared Spurgeon, Charlie Coyle, and Nino Niederreiter also scored for the Wild.
“I think from our leadership group, everyone took a stand with themselves and knew if they played and brought their game tonight, others would follow,” Dumba said. “Leadership reflects attitude and guys just came to win tonight. That’s how we’ve got to have our attitude the rest of the way here.”
Zach Parisescored late to close out the scoring.
[WATCH: All Canadiens vs. Wild highlights]
Antti Niemi got the start for the Habs and surrendered all seven goals in the loss; he made 17 saves.
“Our work wasn’t there tonight,” Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher said. “It was disappointing. … We deserved the result that we got. You can choose to look at this two ways: It can crush us for a few games, or we can show the type of character that we have in this locker room. Honestly, I don’t think we’ve been tested like this this year, so I think it’s a good opportunity for us to respond, show the character that we have in this locker room, come out as a group and respond to this. It’s not fun to be a part of and it’s very disappointing, for sure.”
Carey Price was put into the game late and who made nine saves after all the damage was done.
“We talked about it all day, and we had an opportunity to go back home with a perfect record on this road trip and we needed to be ready to play,” Canadiens coach Claude Julien said. “But that’s exactly what happened, we weren’t ready to play, we weren’t ready to do the things that we needed to do to win and when you don’t do that, you get exposed like you did. It’s not on one person, it’s not on two people, it’s on the whole team.”
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