ST. PAUL, Minn. — Can you imagine if the Wild win the Western Conference and the Vancouver Canucks slip to eighth?
Now that would be one heck of a first-round playoff series.
In a tight-checking, physical, sometimes downright nasty affair, the NHL-leading Wild rallied from a pair of one-goal deficits to beat the Canucks 3-2 when Kirill Kaprizov capped a 1 minute, 45 second shift by extending a franchise record with his ninth career overtime goal.
“Both the teams were kind of assholes out there, but it was good,” said defenseman Jake Middleton, whose tying goal 1:43 into the third period forced overtime. “That was a fun hockey game. Xcel was rocking on a Tuesday. Hope you guys enjoyed it — I know we did.”
Jacob Middleton 🤌 pic.twitter.com/lY8uH3zkQG
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) December 4, 2024
Kaprizov, tied for the NHL’s scoring lead with 39 points, scored his 16th goal with 24.3 seconds left in overtime at the end of a long, long shift right after he and Marco Rossi turned the puck over in the neutral zone for a two-on-zero.
“It’s fun for the fans for sure,” Kaprizov said. “But when you backcheck and you see two-on-zero or two-on-one (against) your line or against your goalie, it’s maybe not fun. But we have same chances, two-on-one.”
Brock Boeser hit the post, Rossi chased down the puck and set up Kaprizov’s one-timer on a two-on-one. The Wild, 17-4-4 on the season, won a fourth straight game, improved to 6-1-1 in their past eight and swept a three-game homestand.
SECONDS AFTER BOESER HIT THE POST, KIRILL KAPRIZOV WINS IT FOR THE WILD IN OT!#mnwild pic.twitter.com/2Rm2MDT2zF
— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights & News (@HockeyDaily365) December 4, 2024
Joel Eriksson Ek, who has been dealing with all sorts of leg issues since Nov. 14, left the game late in overtime after being checked by Jake DeBrusk and landing awkwardly on his right leg.
https://t.co/bD3YXu6Vze pic.twitter.com/QCZnTHWmJp
— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) December 4, 2024
The Wild will take Wednesday off and then practice Thursday before leaving for a three-game road trip to Anaheim, Los Angeles and Salt Lake City.
Kaprizov continues to soar
There were a handful of times in overtime when Kaprizov could have gone for a line change. He did not, and then showed why you want him on the ice.
“He’s a game-changing player,” coach John Hynes said.
Kaprizov played 3:03 of the 4:36 overtime.
“A little tired,” Kaprizov said with a sly grin. “A little bit. But it’s fine.”
Said Filip Gustavsson of his teammate’s minute-munching OT, “He’s just a machine. He works out very hard. He works his ass off in practices. He’s a wonderful hockey player.”
Kaprizov has factored in on a league-high 10 game-winning goals (four goals, six assists), including setting up Jared Spurgeon’s OT winner in the Wild’s previous game.
Gustavsson wins again
Gustavsson, whom the Wild tried to trade all offseason to make room for Jesper Wallstedt, now leads the NHL with a 2.04 goals-against average and .929 save percentage.
He picked up his 12th victory with 30 saves, including two in overtime — one off his buddy Erik Brannstrom.
Gustavsson and Brannstrom, in fact, had dinner Monday night.
“He wanted me to let one in and I just said, ‘No,’” Gustavsson said.
On Wednesday, Gustavsson is expected to make Team Sweden with Eriksson Ek for the 4 Nations Face-Off in February. At the start of the season, nobody could have expected that.
“I think the way Gus is playing, he’s like a lot of guys on the team right now,” Hynes said. “I think he’s focused. He’s ready to play. When he’s called upon to make key saves at key times, he’s able to do that. But he’s confident. I think he’s focused and he’s playing his style of game. I think he’s calm in the net and he reads plays well and he has that ability when he can make big saves at big times, and he’s done that regularly for us.”
‘Prison rules’
The Wild are 10-1-3 on the road. The Canucks are 10-2-1 and looked like a carbon copy of the traveling Wild.
There wasn’t a lot of room. The game was intense and the Wild had to do a tough job keeping their composure by fighting through obstruction and what they felt were missed calls, like a too many men on the ice before Jake DeBrusk’s second-period go-ahead goal and a nasty cross-check Eriksson Ek took in the third period by Tyler Myers.
“They were cross-checking everybody,” Middleton said. “So it was frustrating, ya know? And, fortunately, it was prison rules both ways for a bit and we got away with it, too.”
It was just one intense hockey game.
“From the beginning, it was emotions, some very big hits and chirps back and forth,” Gustavsson said. “Everyone got going. Both teams just wanted to get this win so much. It was a very hard game to play.”
Joel Eriksson Ek absolute deletes Kiefer Sherwood pic.twitter.com/j9r1J2gPHj
— Spoked Z (@SpokedZ) December 4, 2024
Quotes of the night
“Yeah, I heard it from Bolds right away. I saw him open, but I wasn’t connecting on many passes, so I figured I’d shoot.” — Middleton on looking off Kaprizov and Matt Boldy for the third-period tying goal, his fifth of the season.
“I really liked our response from a physical perspective. It wasn’t just certain guys: Boldy got physical, Ek got physical, among others on the team, when they were getting kind of banged around a little bit, and we didn’t shrink in that. I thought we got tougher and we got harder as the game continued to go on. Mentally, you’re down, you’re in one of those games, there’s not a lot of time and space, it’s not easy to score, we come back twice to be able to do that. So that’s kind of the core of our team that we’re talking about, finding a way to win these games and the mental toughness, the physical toughness, the pushback, the focus level. And I thought that we answered the bell tonight.” — Hynes.
“They’re skilled but they play a strong structure too. To be able to win on the road says a lot about a team, so we knew we were in for a big game tonight. But it was a challenge for ourselves just to stay focused. We wanted to sweep the homestand and we knew coming into that one it would be a big one to sweep it. It took all the focus and everybody stayed in it.” — Freddy Gaudreau, who scored a tying goal off a three-on-one.
Freddy Gaudreau gets the Wild level! 👊 pic.twitter.com/sY4Zfg9BDK
— Sports on Prime Canada (@SportsOnPrimeCA) December 4, 2024
(Photo: Matt Krohn / Imagn Images)
