In St Paul, the streaking Minnesota Wild won their seventh straight with a 4-1 victory over the Arizona Coyotes.
“I haven’t talked about it much,” Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau said. “I’ve mentioned it because it’s hard to get to seven. That is a tough thing to get to. So I think it’s worth telling them that they’ve done well.”
In a rare start for the Wild, Darcy Kuemper stopped 27 shots for the win.
With Devan Dubnyk playing well, it has been difficult for Kuemper to get any ice time.
“It’s never fun sitting back and watching, but it’s a little bit easier when the team’s been playing like they have been,” Kuemper said. “It was just nice to get out there and feel like I was contributing to a good thing we’ve got going and it was a fun game in front of the home crowd and it was a big win.”
The Wild built a 3-0 lead off goals from Ryan Suter, Tyler Graovac and Chris Stewart.
“It felt really good. I had a blast,” Graovac said. “It’s fun to be a part of this team when we’re winning like this…We have momentum and we’re going to keep trying to keep this tide going.”
Kuemper had a shutout big going until late in the third when Brendan Perlini the lone Coyotes goal.
Mike Smith made 26 saves in taking the loss for Arizona.
“We started the game well,” Coyotes coach Dave Tippett said. “It was a tight game. It’s a hard turnaround for our group, last game of a trip, and it was going to be a lot harder if we had to chase the game and, unfortunately, we put ourselves behind like that and never even came close to getting back.”
WATCH: All Coyotes vs. Wild highlights
Eric Staal had an empty-net goal to seal it.
“We didn’t give up the shots we have in the past, but we gave up probably more Grade-A chances than we have in a while. We left Smitty out to make huge saves almost every shift. That was really frustrating how we didn’t play hard enough to get a better effort,” the Coyotes’ Connor Murphy said.
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