Kirill Kaprizov scored twice and had an assist and Mats Zuccarello added four helpers as the Minnesota Wild defeated the host Seattle Kraken 5-2 Saturday night in a matchup of teams chasing a wild-card playoff berth in the NHL’s Western Conference.
Marcus Johansson, Matt Boldy and Dakota Mermis also scored for Minnesota, which is 7-1-1 in its past nine games. Goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury made 29 saves.
The Wild went 2-for-6 on the power play while Seattle was 0-for-5.
Vince Dunn and Jordan Eberle scored for the Kraken, who had a four-game point streak snapped (3-0-1). Joey Daccord allowed four goals on 13 shots before being replaced by Philipp Grubauer early in the second period. Grubauer made 17 saves the rest of the way.
Seattle scored on the game’s first shift, as Dunn’s
slapshot from the left point beat a screened Fleury to the near post at 0:36. Jared McCann got an assist to extend his point streak to seven games (five goals, six assists).
Former Kraken Johansson tied the score at 4:59 on a wrist shot from the right faceoff circle that snuck underneath Daccord’s blocker.
The Wild took the lead at 13:32 with a two-man advantage. Kaprizov and Zuccarello passed the puck back and forth behind the Seattle net before Kaprizov reached out front and snuck the puck just inside the right post as Daccord scrambled across the crease.
The Wild tallied twice in the opening 2:14 of the second period to chase Daccord.
Boldy scored at 1:09 on the power play, taking a cross-ice pass from Kaprizov before deking his way past defenseman Will Borgen and lifting a backhander inside the far post. It was Boldy’s seventh goal in the past eight games.
With both teams skating with four players, Kaprizov charged down the left wing and put a wrister from just inside the faceoff dot into the near upper corner of the net 65 seconds later to make it 4-1.
Dakota Mermis beat a screened Grubauer on a wrist shot from the top of the right faceoff at 6:58 of the second to extend the lead to 5-1.
Eberle scored a fluke goal at 6:11 of the third as his backhanded centering pass from the right-wing corner went off Mermis’ skate and into the net.
The Kraken wore the uniforms designed for their Jan. 1 Winter Classic matchup against Vegas that paid tribute to the 1917 Seattle Metropolitans, the first U.S. team to win the Stanley Cup.
–Field Level Media