Wild continue success on road, overcome pair of overturned goals: 3 takeaways
SAN JOSE, Calif. — The Minnesota Wild overcame a pair of overturned goals due to successful offside challenges by the San Jose Sharks on Thursday night to begin a three-game road trip with a 5-2 win at SAP Center.
The Wild, behind two goals from Matt Boldy and a goal each from Zach Bogosian , Mats Zuccarello and Jonas Brodin , improved to 6-1-1 on the road and 9-2-2 overall. Coming off a loss at home to Los Angeles, the Wild have played 13 games this season without losing consecutive games in regulation.
Boldy has the winning goal in the Wild's past three wins and leads the team with eight overall.
Kirill Kaprizov snapped a two-game point drought by assisting on three goals for his fourth three-point game in his last seven. He extended his road point streak to seven games. Among active NHLers, the only other players with road point streaks of seven games or more are Connor McDavid (seven games in 2020-21), Roman Josi (eight in 2021-22) and Steven Stamkos (eight in 2017-18).
Kaprizov is second in the NHL with 24 points and leads the league with 17 even-strength points and 1.85 points per game.
Future Hall of Famer Marc-Andre Fleury , who tied Hall of Famer Patrick Roy for the third-most games in NHL history for a goaltender (1,029), made 24 saves, including a couple of dandies, to improve to 3-0-1 this season.
Bogosian became the second Wild defenseman and first since Matt Dumba in 2015 to score the game's opening goal in consecutive contests.
The road trip continues Friday night in Anaheim, where the Wild play on the second of back-to-back nights. The Wild are 15-2 in their past 17 meetings with Anaheim and have won 11 of their past 13 at Honda Center, outscoring the Ducks there over that stretch 43-20.
Kaprizov-to-Zuccarello magic ... again
Sometimes it's like Kaprizov and Zuccarello share a brain. They always, always know where each other is, and that was the case on Zuccarello's gorgeous goal in the second period.
With the score tied 1-1 and the Wild tired of letting the Sharks hang around long enough for rookie Macklin Celebrini to knot a game the Sharks had no right to be in with his first of two goals, Kaprizov hopped over the boards for a monster shift. He was downright everywhere during a relentless shift that ended with him racing to a loose puck and crossing a no-look pass above the crease right onto the reaching tape of a driving Zuccarello for his sixth goal and a 2-1 lead.
Two goals overturned
The Wild twice thought they took two-goal leads only to see them disappear off the board due to coach's challenges.
The first time, Joel Eriksson Ek scored off Ryan Hartman 's pass only to learn he preceded the puck into the zone and was offside. That would have been a 2-0 lead. Later, Hartman thought he redirected Freddy Gaudreau's shot for a 3-1 lead only to learn he, too, preceded the puck into the zone and was offside.
At least Eriksson Ek and Hartman had only themselves to blame for their erased goals.
The Wild finally gained a two-goal lead when Boldy whistled a shot through traffic for the winner.
Power play snaps goalless streak
The Wild failed to score on their first two power plays to extend their goalless drought to 16 in a row over a four-plus-game stretch.
But it was obvious, especially on the first power-play attempt, that the Wild got back to basics, were moving the puck seamlessly and shooting pucks. They didn't score on those first two, but they did on the third when Boldy took Brock Faber 's pass and simply fired through Eriksson Ek's screen.
The Wild also went 3-for-3 on the penalty kill after allowing a goal six times on their previous 11 penalty kills.
(Photo of Joel Eriksson Ek trying to get the puck past defenseman Cody Ceci and goalie Vitek Vanecek: Ezra Shaw / )
