The Wild get four out of six possible points on a tough road trip to return home for a three-game homestand. Here are three takeaways from the Wild's latest 5-2 win over the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Wild get four out of six possible points on a tough road trip to return home for a three-game homestand. Here are three takeaways from the Wild's latest 5-2 win over the Carolina Hurricanes.
The Wild started the three-game road trip with an ugly 7-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning but quickly rebounded with a 6-4 win the next night in Florida against the Panthers and now a 5-2 win over the Hurricanes in Carolina.
Here are three takeaways from the Wild's win.
Kaprizov stays hot
Since coming back from his injury, Kirill Kaprizov has recorded five goals and eight points in five games and has posted five goals and six points in his last two games alone.
Last game against the Panthers Kaprizov put up three points, all of which were power play points, tonight he put up three points again with none of them coming on the power play.
Since taking time off with his injury, seven games to be exact, Kaprizov has looked much more like he used to do. He looks more explosive and now has ten goals and 17 points in his last ten games. Which is exactly what the Wild need to happen.
Gustavsson looks sharp
After a rough first game back from his lower-body injury that kept him out for seven games, Filip Gustavsson followed it up with another in Tampa. The team didn't help him out that much but Gustavsson probably wanted a few of those back.
With it being a back-to-back, Gustavsson didn't start against the Panthers but later entered the game in the second period after Marc-Andre Fleury removed himself from the game with an injury.
Hoping to rebound tonight, Gustavsson did just that. He kept the Wild in the game in Florida to eventually secure the win and tonight he stopped 40 shots out of the 42 he faced for his second straight win.
Fourth line's usage
The Wild's fourth line didn't see a lot of minutes in this game but John Hynes threw the fourth line over the boards a lot in the third period to try and protect the lead late which is a positive sign for sure.
According to MoneyPuck, Adam Raska led the Wild in expected goals percentage at 5v5 and was only on the ice for 0.1 expected goals against and 0.86 expected goals for.
Losing Connor Dewar is tough, especially with how good defensively he has been this year and previous but both Raska and Jake Lucchini did a good job on the Wild's fourth line as the duo, along with Brandon Duhaime, only allowing 0.1 expected goals against which was the best on the team.