A five-game winning streak is over for the Minnesota Wild but they were able to escape Sunday night’s 3-2 shootout loss to the Nashville Predators with a point.
Playing a difficult back-to-back on the road against Western Conference-leading Calgary Saturday night only to fly home to skate Central Division power Nashville could’ve been worse, but the Wild were able to claim three out of four points.
They beat Calgary and lost 3-2 in a shootout to Nashville.
Eric Fehr scored a breakaway goal late in the second period to tie the game 1-1 and less than three minutes later Jason Zucker scored for the third time in the last four games to give the Wild the lead.
Filip Forsberg tied the game 2-2 with 4:19 remaining in the third to force overtime and the eventual shootout, which was won in the fourth round by Nashville’s Ryan Johansen.
Alex Stalock made 41 saves for the Wild, who are up to 71 points, tied with Dallas for the first wild-card spot but just two points ahead of Arizona and three up on Colorado.
“I think that lately every time we go on the ice we think we’re going to win. We don’t think something bad is going to happen to us. We are going to get the lead and we’re going to hold it,” head coach Bruce Boudreau said.
“We played some pretty good teams in the last three games and we might’ve got outshot but we played them on an even keel. It’s very uplifting and positive. It’s not going to get easier. It’s just something we know we can do when we put our mind to it.”
Wild honor Lindsey Vonn
Vonn, the St. Paul native who got her skiing start on Buck Hill in Burnsville, was honored before the game when she dropped the ceremonial puck.
The all-time winningest female skier with 82 career World Cup wins recently announced her retirement, and Sunday’s game was perfect timing to honor her because she and her brother grew up as Wild fans and her boyfriend, P.K. Subban, plays for Nashville.
Mikael Granlund, who spent seven years with Minnesota before being traded to Nashville on Feb. 25, was also honored in his first game back at Xcel Energy Center.
