Wild end four-game winning streak after a 2-0 loss to Vancouver on the road.
Wild snapped a four-game win streak with a 2-0 loss to Vancouver.The Canucks (17-9-1) shutout the Wild (9-11-4) 2-0 on Thursday night following Casey DeSmith's 26-save shutout.
DeSmith, 32, has always performed well against the Wild. So much so that the Canucks decided to start DeSmith over Thatcher Demko, who is second in the NHL in wins and arguably one of the best goalies this season.
After the win, DeSmith is now 5-0-0 against the Wild in his career with a 1.78 goals-against average and a .943 save percentage with one shutout. He also became the first Canucks backup goaltender to record a shutout since 2017 when Anders Nilsson ironically shut out the Wild on October 24th.
But DeSmith and the Canucks didn't dominate the game to start, even though it may seem like that. The Wild opened the game by outshooting the Canucks 10-0 in the first 13 minutes of the game.
They finished the period with only 12 shots and allowed one goal on four Canucks shots. The Wild had five high-danger scoring chances that period to the Canucks one and had two minutes and 31 seconds of even-strength offensive zone possession time to the Canucks' 52 seconds but still saw themselves trailing after one period.
That completely flipped in the second period when the Canucks outshot the Wild 10-4 and spent more time in the offensive zone at 5v5 than the Wild did through two periods.
It was a complete turnaround for Vancouver.
With the Wild not cashing in on their chances in the first, the Canucks took over all the momentum after they got their first goal. It came after Kirill Kaprizov tried to work his way through three Canucks' players in the offensive zone.
The Canucks recovered the puck and started a breakout the other way. With the three Wild forwards backchecking, the Canucks had a three-on-two the other way and Nils Hoglander ripped home his ninth goal of the year through a screen in front of Filip Gustavsson, who finished the night with 15 saves on 17 shots.
Another mistake by the Wild in the third period allowed Teddy Blueger the former Minnesota State Maverick forward, to get behind the defense and score on a mini breakaway goal.
Alex Goligoski had the puck on the wall and sent one up to Pat Maroon who could not clear nor did Marcus Foligno who was also standing on the wall. The puck squirted free at the blue line and both Goligoski and Jon Merrill went for it, allowing Blueger to quietly sneak behind Merrill and catch a pass from Conor Garland before deeking Gustavsson for his second goal of the year.
Minnesota did not recover and eventually walked away with a 2-0 loss against the Canucks ending their four-game win streak under new head coach John Hynes. It's a quick turnaround though as the Wild are set to face the Edmonton Oilers tonight.