Rink Rule: Lightning vs. Wild

ST. PAUL — Undefeated at home in regulation. It’s only been three games on home ice for the Minnesota Wild so far this season, but still. They’re 7-1-2 this season, after a successful seven-game road trip and Friday’s 5-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Wild’s first game at Xcel Energy Center in nearly three weeks.

It’s been a good first 10 games of the 2024-25 campaign for the Wild. Here are five rules recapping their latest win:

1. The number of the night was seven.

Things started on a good note when St. Paul’s own, and Major League Baseball Hall of Fame catcher, Joe Mauer helped lead the “Let’s Play Hockey!” call alongside his twin daughters. Mauer, sports fans know, wore the jersey number 7 during his entire baseball career as a Minnesota Twin. That retired number seven is now hanging over Target Field.

Perhaps it was fitting when another Minnesota kid, Brock Faber, scored a goal early in the third period to break a 1-1 tie. Faber also wears No. 7.

“There seemed to be a little bit of a screen,” Faber said. “I just tried to put it on net, really.”

But the most eye-popping stats of the night having to do with the number seven came from – who else? – Kirill Kaprizov as he continues his hot start to the season. He scored a pair of goals and added a crafty assist for a three-point night. The tallies bumped his points streak to seven consecutive games. He also has recorded multiple points in seven consecutive games this season, which is a new franchise record.

Oh, and the Wild have seven victories, too.

2. NHL scoring leader – that’s right – Kirill Kaprizov lived up to his “Kirill the thrill” nickname.

Kaprizov’s first goal Friday gave the Wild the lead for good a few minutes into the third period for a 3-2 game. He followed later with an empty-netter.

Kaprizov leads the NHL in scoring with seven goals and 14 assists for 21 points in the season’s first 10 games. It’s unprecedented for the Wild to have such a dominating points producer. A fact not lost on his teammate, and Minnesota native, Faber.

“I’m from Minnesota, you know,” Faber told the media after Friday’s game. “Obviously, you guys all see how good he is on the ice, how well he’s playing. Such a complete game.”

With his latest efforts Friday, Kaprizov is the first player in Wild history to become the fastest to reach 20 points in a season. The game was also the 35th of his career scoring three points, which passes Mikko Koivu for the most in franchise history, according to NHL Stats.

Only three active players have scored at least 21 points through 10 games in a season: Kaprizov, and Edmonton Oilers’ Leon Draisaitl (23 points in 2021-22 and 21 points in 2022-23) and Connor McDavid (22 points in 2022-23 and 2021-22).

Marco Rossi recorded an assist and two shots on goal in Friday’s game against Tampa Bay. (MHM Photo / Jeff Wegge)

3. Watch out for… multiple pucks?

A bit of an odd sequence about halfway through the game: There were two pucks on the ice during play. Marco Rossi went into the Tampa Bay zone on a breakaway and fired the puck on net. As he skated around the back of the net, he picked up a puck that was sitting behind the cage and put it into the goal on a wraparound. But that wasn’t the puck he had on his stick a few seconds before. The puck was being played up the ice.

It was a confusing moment as some fans in the arena cheered seeing a puck in the goal. Officials went over to the penalty boxes to look at the play. There was no goal awarded on the play, rightfully so.

Wild coach John Hynes hadn’t seen anything like that before.

“Never. Never,” Hynes said. “It’s funny because when the puck went in… I didn’t know what everyone was cheering about, because I was following the real puck.

4. Special teams could haunt. But they didn’t.

All three Tampa Bay goals came with an extra attacker on the ice. The Wild got caught with a too many men penalty late in the first period, which led to the Lightning’s first power-play goal with 45 seconds left in the period. Goalie Filip Gustavsson made a sprawling save initially, but the puck popped right out to Brayden Point for his seventh (there’s that number again) goal of the season and a 1-0 lead at intermission.

The Lightning tied the game in the third period with another power-play goal, going 2-for-4 with the man advantage on the night. Tampa Bay pulled goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy with a few minutes left in regulation and capitalized with the extra skater to make it a 4-3 game with 2 minutes, 26 seconds left in the game.

The Wild power play, meanwhile, went 0-for-2 on Friday.

“I think the positive side of that is, again, we won a game where we didn’t win the special teams battle,” Hynes said. “But our objective every night is to make sure that we do win the special teams battle. Because that, lots of times, could turn a game.”

It was the first time this season that the Wild’s penalty kill surrendered two goals in a game. Coming into the game, the Wild were 5-for-17 on the kill, ranking 28th in the NHL at 70.6%.

5. Jake Guentzel cashed in on the #OneOfUs narrative.

The Woodbury/Hill-Murray product had a nice homecoming visit when he tied the game 2-2 with nine seconds left in a Lightning power play. With 13:37 left in the third period. The first-line left-winger is among the team’s scoring leaders with five goals and seven assists so far this season.

Guentzel now has 15 points (6-9—15) in 14 career games against the Wild.