Dylan Guenther scored a pair of goals to lift the Utah Hockey Club to a 2-1 win over the Minnesota Wild on Friday night in Saint Paul, Minn.
Guenther’s two goals were all that Utah goaltender Karel Vejmelka needed to preserve the victory. Vejmelka stopped 28 of 29 shots for Utah, which notched a season high with its fourth victory in a row.
Mats Zuccarello scored the lone goal for Minnesota, which lost for the third straight game. The Wild have dropped five of their past seven games for their worst slump of the season.
Vejmelka improved to 8-7-2 with his fourth straight win.
Wild goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury gave up two goals on 18 shots to take the loss.
Minnesota opened the scoring on a give-and-go play between Zuccarello and Kirill Kaprizov with 9:40 remaining in the first period. Zuccarello fed a pass to Kaprizov, who zipped a pass back to Zuccarello for a one-timer from the right circle.
Sixty seconds later, Utah evened the score at 1-1. Fleury made a kick save on a long shot from Jack McBain, but the rebound went right to Guenther near the front of the crease, and he quickly punched the puck into the net.
Guenther gave Utah the go-ahead goal on the power play with 9:59 to go in the third period. After Utah won a faceoff, Guenther got the puck near the top of the left circle and fired a shot through traffic for his second goal of the game and his 16th of the season.
Utah finished 1-for-3 on the man advantage. Minnesota went 0-for-5 on the power play.
Wild goaltender Filip Gustavsson remained unavailable because of an unspecified lower-body injury that has sidelined him for the past four games. Jesper Wallstedt filled the role as Fleury’s backup on the Minnesota bench.
The teams will meet two more times during the regular season. The Wild are scheduled to host Utah on Jan. 23, and they will visit Salt Lake City on Feb. 27.
–Field Level Media
