The Minnesota Wild saw its franchise-record 14-game point streak come to an end on Saturday afternoon as they lost 5-2 to the Boston Bruins at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.
Things looked good early for the Wild, who got on the board at 9:45 of the first period with a beautiful tic-tac-toe play in front of Bruins goalie Linus Ullmark that led to Marcus Johansson’s 15th goal of the season.
ST. PAUL 🔺 #mnwild pic.twitter.com/8Bmp1Vwzq1
— Minnesota Wild (@mnwild) March 18, 2023
The Wild appeared to take a 2-0 lead later in the first period, but Matt Dumba’s goal was overturned by review when Connor Dewar was ruled offsides. The Bruins took advantage by tying the game on Jake DeBrusk’s goal at 18:38 of the first period and added to their lead with a pair of goals in the second period.
David Pastrnak scored a power play goal at 8:43 of the second period to put the Bruins in front and after a Matt Boldy goal was overturned, Boston took a 3-1 lead on David Krejci’s goal at 14:03 of the second period.
The Wild chipped into the lead with a power play goal from Oskar Sundqvist at 7:17 of the third period but Patrice Bergeron scored his 25th goal of the season and Trent Frederic added an empty net goal to put the game away.
Ullmark rebounded from the early goal to make 29 saves for the Bruins while Filip Gustavsson stopped 33 of 37 shots in the loss for the Wild.
The loss came at an unfortunate time for the Wild, who at 86 points could have jumped the Dallas Stars (87 points) for first place in the Central Division. Instead, the Wild will look to start a new streak when they host the Washington Capitals at 1 p.m. on Sunday afternoon.
