Kirill Kaprizov capped a hat trick with a game-winning goal with 20 seconds remaining in overtime as the Minnesota Wild scored a 3-2 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Sunday afternoon.
Brb rewatching this until further notice 🔁
KAPRIZOV HATTY 🎩🎩🎩#mnwild pic.twitter.com/XfhHAxFKl4
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) February 26, 2023
Kaprizov turned it on as the Wild entered the third period down 2-0, putting Minnesota on the board with his 35th goal of the season from Jared Spurgeon and Ryan Hartman at 1:15. Kapriov’s second goal came at 6:00 of the third period as he scored off a feed from Matt Boldy for his franchise-record 16th power-play goal of the year.
Will never shut up about this man 🤑#mnwild pic.twitter.com/8YAVXV1Oy1
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) February 26, 2023
That set up Kaprizov to be the hero in overtime, connecting on a tic-tac-toe play from Calen Addison and Mats Zuccarello for his 37th goal of the season which sent hats flying onto the ice at the Xcel Energy Center.
The comeback came after the Wild appeared to have a case of the Sunday scaries in the first two periods. Mathieu Olivier put the Blue Jackets on the board with an assist from Eric Robinson at 16:20 of the first period and Liam Foudy gave Columbus a 2-0 lead with assists from Erik Gudbranson and Emil Bemstrom at 3:04 of the second period.
Marc-Andre Fleury turned it around from there, stopping 22 of 24 shots in net to give the Wild their fifth win in the past five games.
The Wild improved to 33-21-6 on the season and jumped ahead of the Colorado Avalanche and Winnipeg Jets for second place in the Central Division with 72 points. Minnesota will look to keep climbing the standings when they host the New York Islanders on Tuesday night.
