A little desperation is a good thing, keeps you sharp and makes you want to succeed just a bit more than the competition.
Such is the case for the Minnesota Wild who managed a 4-1 victory over the visiting Nashville Predators on Saturday.
Trailing 1-0 after 20 minutes of play, the Wild posted four unanswered goals, two in 
each of the last two periods.
Joel Eriksson Ek, Nino Niederreiter, Jason Zucker and Zach Parise struck for the Wild.
“At the end of the day, we have to take it game by game,” Niederreiter said. “We aren’t in the postseason yet, so we’ve just got to focus on each and every game.”
Devan Dubnyk made 19 saves to get the win as the Wild improved to
“We know what we are. When we have everybody going and playing the way we know we can, we can compete against anybody. It was a big one tonight. … Obviously, we know what the standings look like. Colorado won earlier. It’s tight. It’s going to continue to be a dogfight here the last eight [games], so we’ll follow it up hopefully with a big win tomorrow [against the Boston Bruins],” the Wild’s Eric Staal said after the win.
Ryan Johansen scored the lone Preds goal in the opening frame.
“Our first period I thought was solid,” Johansen said. “I didn’t think it was amazing or anything, but we did a lot of good things. Then we just got away from it. I’m sure we’ll look at it in the morning, but this is the NHL, you’ve got to play 60 minutes to win hockey games.”
Nashville dropped to 48-16-10 and have lost two straight after a 15-game point streak.
[WATCH:Â All Predators vs. Wild highlights]
Pekka Rinne made 26 saves in taking the loss.
“We’ll use [this loss] as some motivation here to play with some aggression going into tomorrow’s game [against the Winnipeg Jets]. We’ve got to get back to our winning ways. We’re looking forward tomorrow to dropping the puck,” Johansen said after the game.
You must be logged in to post a comment.