It took a shootout to settle Friday night’s game between the Minnesota Wild and Vancouver, but the Wild came away with an important road win, 2-1.
In the seventh round of the shootout, the Wild’s Justin Fontaine broke the tie, winning the game for Minnesota when he beat Vancouver goalie Eddie Lack.
The real story of the game though may have been the play of Wild goalie Darcy Kuemper. Playing in his second game in as many nights, Kuemper gave up an early goal to Vancouver’s Ryan Kesler, but he shut it down after that, making 30 saves in the contest and stonewalling the Canucks through six rounds of the shootout.
Prosser on Kuemper: "he was a machine." Fontaine on Kuemper: "unreal. That's a win for him." #mnwild
— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) March 1, 2014
The Wild trailed 1-0 late in the first when Zach Parise evened the score on his 20th goal of the season, late in the first. Parise was assisted by Jason Pominville and Mikael Granlund.
And then, that was it.
Neither team found the net again until Fontaine put the game away in the seventh round of the shootout.
The win gave the Wild two more points, upping their season total to 73.
