Rink Rule: Kraken vs. Wild

ST. PAUL — A quick 3-0 lead. A timeout called by the trailing team. Both happened within the first five minutes of the game on the ice at Xcel Energy Center during a March game.

No, this was not an encore performance from Mason Kraft and the Moorhead Spuds boys’ hockey team.

This was the Minnesota Wild getting out to the fastest goal-scoring start at home in franchise history when they jumped all over the Seattle Kraken following an 8:52 p.m. puck drop Wednesday night at Xcel Energy Center. The end result was a 4-0 win.

Here are five rules from the Wild’s second consecutive win on home ice:

1. The Wild scored goals in a 1:42 span, also the second-fastest three goals to start a game in franchise history.

The floodgates opened early for the Wild, the same team that’s had trouble scoring goals across its last dozen or so games. It hadn’t scored a first-period goal in six games, let alone pumping in multiple goals in quick succession. The Wild scored the trio of goals in a span of 1 minute, 42 seconds. That prompted Seattle (30-35-5) to call a timeout and calm things down at the 4:29 mark of the game.

“The plan was to try to come out right away, get everyone involved, and that was a really good start for us,” said Wild forward Ryan Hartman.  

The fastest three goals for the Wild came Jan. 14, 2017 in Dallas when they scored three in four minutes.

The Wild also became the fastest team to score three goals to start a game this season in the NHL. The previous mark was the Detroit Red Wings scoring three by the 5:06 mark on Feb. 23.

The Wild also scored at least three goals in back-to-back games. The last time that happened was sandwiched around the break in February with a 6-3 win against the New York Islanders on Feb. 8 and then a 4-3 overtime victory in Detroit right after the break on Feb. 22.

2. Hartman scored first, Matt Boldy broke out of his slump, Liam Ohgren scored his second of the season.

First, it was Hartman tallying his second goal in as many games. He slid perfectly into the slot, accepted the puck and fired it into the net only 2 minutes, 47 seconds into the game. It’s his ninth goal of the season and third since returning from his eight-game suspension.

Matt Boldy scored an unassisted tally just 1 minute, 12 seconds later to break his 11-game goal drought.

“It’s always fun to score,” Boldy said. “I was happy to see one go in, for sure. Some relief.

“I think the more you build it up, the more stress you create about yourself. You try to stay away from it and keep if off your mind.”

He also added an empty-netter, which gave him 23 goals for the season and putting him into a tie for the team goals lead with the injured Kirill Kaprizov.

Liam Ohgren, playing his first Wild game since Feb. 28 at Colorado, made it 3-0 at the 4:29 mark of the game. It’s the third goal of his NHL career and first at Xcel Energy Center. He’s spent the majority of the season in Iowa, but he also recognized how much it helped when the team got out to such a quick lead.

“When that happens, you’re always on a roll, and you always want more,” Ohgren said. “That’s what keeps the guys going. It was fun.”

3. The game was pretty quiet after the first five minutes.

Unlike the Stillwater vs. Moorhead boys’ state championship game that turned into an exciting 7-6 win for the Spuds, the similarities to the Wild game ended at that 4:29 mark in the first period.

Any late-arriving fans to the late-evening puck drop missed all the action. Beyond the three quick goals, there wasn’t much in the way of excitement. The Wild couldn’t generate much of anything on two first-period power plays. They also went cold in the shots-on-goal department in the final minutes of the opening period and didn’t register a shot in the second until just after the first TV timeout.

The Wild successfully killed off a penalty in the first minute of the second period, going 11-for-12 across the last five games.

Also on the defensive end, Filip Gustavsson made 34 saves in net for his 27th win of the season and fifth shutout. The victory was the Wild’s sixth shutout this season. Gustavsson is 5-2-1 with an NHL-leading .944 save percentage in March.

Wild coach John Hynes likes the consistency he’s seeing from Gustavsson lately.

“It seems like he’s mentally alert and physically he feels good,” Hynes said. “That’s what I like.

“Naturally, the game forces you to be completely engaged and intense, and I thought in tonight’s game he was there when we needed him because we didn’t play a perfect game, but even though we were up with a lead I thought when they had some looks he was sharp and that to me was a really good game by him and then I think it shows you where his mental focus is.

4. The Wild can’t make it through the game without another player getting injured.

The news wasn’t all good on the Wild front. Marco Rossi left the game early in the second period when he took a Boldy shot off his leg. The team announced in the second period that Rossi wouldn’t return after sustaining the lower-body injury. Hynes didn’t have an update on Rossi after the game.

“Hopefully he’s okay, and it’s nothing serious,” Hartman said.

The Wild were already shorthanded (what else is new?) to start the night with Marcus Foligno missing his second straight game with day-to-day status. Marcus Johansson also missed Wednesday because of illness. Ohgren found out he was playing when he got to the rink pregame.

Add Rossi to the mix, and that brings the Wild’s list of players not suiting up quite lengthy:

Kaprizov, Joel Eriksson Ek, Jonas Brodin, Foligno, Johansson and Rossi. It’s another blow for Rossi, whose goal slump reached 11 games including Wednesday.

5. That’s back-to-back Wild wins on home ice for the first time since early February.

The Wild have been a better road team all season, with a 22-10-3 record. Home ice has not been their advantage, for whatever reason. They’ve hovered around the .500 mark at home and have also put up some real lackluster efforts. They were just booed off the ice Saturday in a 5-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues, after all.

But the win against the Kraken improved the Wild’s mark at Xcel Energy Center to 17-15-2, and 3-2-1 on the seven-game homestand that wraps up Saturday afternoon against Buffalo. Coupled with the team’s 3-1 win over Los Angeles on Monday, the Wild won back-to-back home games for the first time since Feb. 6 and Feb. 8 against Carolina and the Islanders.