Matt Boldy continued his offensive resurgence and goaltender Filip Gustavsson made 24 saves for his second shutout of the season as the Minnesota Wild defeated the host Seattle Kraken 3-0 on Sunday night.
Marco Rossi also scored and Joel Eriksson Ek added an empty-netter with 3.9 seconds remaining for the Wild, who snapped a two-game skid and improved to 5-2-0 since John Hynes replaced Dean Evason as coach.
Joey Daccord stopped 23 of 25 shots for Seattle, which suffered its eighth consecutive defeat (0-6-2).
The Wild opened the scoring on a three-on-two rush at 7:14 of the first period. Kirill Kaprizov carried the puck into the offensive zone and fed Boldy on the left wing. Boldy cut toward the net, faked a backhanded shot and reached around Daccord to slip a forehander inside the near post. It was Boldy’s seventh goal of the season and his sixth in seven games under Hynes.
Minnesota nearly doubled its lead with just over 4 1/2 minutes left in the second on a two-on-one rush, but Daccord stopped Rossi’s shot. Pat Maroon’s follow-up deflected off a defenseman’s skate, slid across the goal line and hit off the far post.
Daccord also stopped a breakaway by Kaprizov with 15 minutes remaining in the game.
Rossi finally made it 2-0 at 12:34 of the third following a Kraken turnover deep in Seattle’s own end. Minnesota’s Mats Zuccarello stole the puck from Oliver Bjorkstrand as he attempted to bring the puck out from behind his own net. The puck was knocked off Zuccarello’s stick, but it slid to Rossi outside the right post, and Rossi put a shot into the open side of the net.
Wild defenseman Zach Bogosian returned to the lineup after missing the previous four games with an upper-body injury. That gave Minnesota a boost after fellow blue-liner Jonas Brodin was hurt in Friday’s 4-3 loss at Edmonton. Brodin (upper body) is considered week-to-week.
Kraken goaltender Philipp Grubauer was placed on injured reserve after being hurt late in the second period of Saturday’s 4-3 overtime loss to visiting Tampa Bay. Seattle called up Chris Driedger from Coachella Valley of the AHL to back up Daccord.
–Field Level Media
