The bad news for the Wild? They lost superstar winger Kirill Kaprizov in the process. He suffered an injury midway through the game and appeared to cradle his right shoulder as he struggled to the Wild locker room.
“He’s as tough and gritty as we get,” coach Dean Evason said. “And he doesn’t come back in that hockey game. It doesn’t look good.”
Give the Wild credit for responding after Kaprizov went down. Already playing shorthanded up front — winger Brandon Duhaime tested positive for COVID on Thursday morning — the Wild got a strong effort from their supporting cast.
There was defenseman Dmitry Kulikov immediately dropping the gloves with Bruins winger Trent Frederic after the hit that knocked Kaprizov out of the game. There was rookie winger Matt Boldy scoring the first goal of his career in his NHL debut. There was goaltender Kaapo Kahkonen stepping up big time with 36 saves in his first start in nearly a month.
All of it added up to a much-needed win as the Wild snapped a five-game losing streak.
“It was about time,” Kulikov said of the win “I feel like our game hasn’t been what we want it to be. It felt like every guy contributed in some way (today) and we played hard. We really played like a team today and I think the result was the outcome of our effort for 60 minutes.”
That said, the mood was far from celebratory after the game as the uncertainly surrounding Kaprizov cast a shadow on the final score.
The hit on Kaprizov was a major talking point after the game, and while veteran winger Mats Zuccarello chose not to comment, Evason had no problem calling out Frederic for what he felt was a dirty hit. He started his postgame new conference saying he was “really frustrated” with how Kaprizov got hurt.
“It’s predatorial hit,” Evason said. “The puck is sitting right there. You know what he’s doing. He’s going to hurt our best player. There’s no question. That is not a hockey play. The puck’s sitting right there. All he has to do is take the puck and go. And in a vulnerable position, he hits a player from behind.”
The injury comes at a terrible time for the Wild as they are already without captain Jared Spurgeon (lower-body injury), top center Joel Eriksson Ek (upper-body injury), No. 1 goaltender Cam Talbot (lower-body injury), depth winger Nick Bjugstad (upper-body injury), and hulking winger Jordan Greenway (COVID protocol).
That’s what makes the win Thursday night so incredible.
As for the game itself, the Wild fell behind early as Bruins winger Taylor Hall scored in the first period to put his team in front 1-0.
The Wild were gifted a 5-on-3 later in the first period thanks to the Bruins taking a couple of undisciplined penalties.
Though the Wild have struggled mightily on the power play of late, Kaprizov buried a shot early in the 5-on-3 to tie the game at 1-1. Not long after that, center Nico Sturm deflected a shot from the point to push the Wild in front 2-1.
Things took a turn for the worse midway through the second period when Kaprizov went down in a heap.
The sequence started with Kaprizov getting pushed off and ended with Frederic crunching him along the boards while he was in a defenseless position. In an instant, Kulikov came racing in to drop the gloves, clearly taking exception to Frederic’s actions.
“It looked like a dirty hit,” Kulikov said. “He was coming in and Kirill was in a vulnerable position and he still went through the hit, You don’t want to see a teammate go down like that. Just unfortunate that he left the game.”
A couple of minutes later, Boldy made the Bruins pay in a different way, scoring the first goal of his career to put the Wild in front 3-1. He became the 10th player in Wild history to score a goal in his NHL debut, and the Massachusetts native did so with tons of family and friends in the stands.
“I think I blacked out after I scored,” Boldy said. “I just remember the guys coming in and kind of screaming and smiling.”
A few minutes after that, Bruins winger Brad Marchand scored on the power play to make it 3-2, setting up a dramatic finish in the final 20 minutes.
Not surprisingly, winger Marcus Foligno dropped the gloves with Frederic early in the third period, forcing him to answer once again for the hit on Kaprizov.
As time progressed, cooler heads started to prevail, and the Wild held on for dear life down the stretch. With the Bruins pushing hard for the equalizer, Kahkonen stood on his head, making a handful of big saves to preserve the win.
“Obviously they were trying to shoot everything,” Kahkonen said. “What I really loved about our game is that everything came from the outside. I saw everything. It was long range from the outside, and any time we had to flip the puck out, we did. We made the right play every single time. I think a lot of credit to those guys.”
Credit to everyone on the Wild for persevering on a night they had every excuse not to.
“That’s who we are and I think we’re all really proud of that,” Kahkonen said. ” That’s what we have to try and keep doing. It doesn’t matter who we play or when we play or where.”
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Wild beat Bruins to snap losing streak, lose Kirill Kaprizov in process - Pine Journal
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