The Minnesota Wild had another tough opponent in town with the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday night. Vegas currently holds the top Wild Card spot so it should be another good battle at the Xcel Energy Center.
The Wild were also going to have to play without F Jason Zucker as he was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Monday night but they had new acquisition, F Alex Galchenyuk, in the lineup to take his spot.
The game started and Vegas F Ryan Reaves laid a heavy check on Minnesota Wild C Mikko Koivu and F Ryan Hartman saw the hit, didn’t like it and told Reaves so. They had a little scuffle and Vegas got a power play out of it because Hartman was a little rougher than Reaves during the scuffle as he got a double-minor for Roughing while Reaves only got a minor.
Well, the Wild get to work on their power play and they’ve been trying to fix it for a while now. The work is starting to see results as they shut down the Knights to get back to 5-on-5 play.
Then, on their own power play, the Wild think they score but the official waves it off saying it never completely crossed the goal line but they were celebrating like it had so Vegas F Reilly Smith got a breakaway and G Alex Stalock made a huge save to keep the game scoreless.
Later, in that same power play, Ek got the scoring started when he flew into the offensive zone and took a shot that was blocked by Vegas D Nate Schmidt. The puck came right back to Ek though so he shot it again and G Marc-Andre Fleury had very little chance to react fast enough to make the save. It was Ek’s 1st Career Power Play goal. He’s not usually a power-play guy but the power play was almost over and his line was going out for the end of it so he got a chance and buried it.
The next goal, also on the power play. Ryan Suter got the puck at the middle of the blue line and fed Jared Spurgeon in the slot. Spurgeon made a tip pass to Kevin Fiala at the right of the goal crease for a shot then another chance on the rebound but he tried to move the puck to his forehand and missed but it trickled out for Jared Spurgeon to put the wild up.2-0,
The Wild continued to play very well in the 2nd period and had the Knights trapped in their own zone. Eric Staal had the puck at the right point with Fiala coming towards him up the right half-wall and Staal tries to pass it to Fiala but Vegas F Chandler Stephenson gets a piece of it then knocks it towards the center of the zone. Wild D Jonas Brodin was coming in on the puck and tried to shoot only to snap his stick but the puck got to the net and may have hit Zach Parise’s skate before getting to Fleury then Zach tries to slide it between his legs but Fleury makes that save only to have the puck laying there for Fiala to score his 14th goal of the season. 3-0, Wild!
The @MinnesotaWild added another goal on the Power Play when Zach Parise tipped in a quick one-time pass from Eric Staal that may have gone off of Nate Schmidt and then up and over Fleury. This goal also happened after Fiala’s pass from the corner was blocked but he got it back and made the pass to Staal below the goal line.
Just a great all-around game from the #MNWild, from being physical in the 1st period not letting Ryan Reaves get them off their game with his physicality to G Alex Stalock making big saves in the 1st & the 2nd that kept the game scoreless and the Wild up 3-0.
The value of gold may have gone down because the Wild dismantled the Golden Knights.
Goals by Joel Eriksson Ek (7), Jared Spurgeon (7), Kevin Fiala (14) & Zach Parise (21) all came on rebounds or a tipped shot.
Next up: New York Rangers at #TheX tomorrow night at 7pm on Fox Sports North
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