*Photo from the Santa Maria Times*
Things getting Wild in the Northwest. Marcus Foligno had a goal and an assist, Marcus Johansson scored twice, and the Minnesota Wild defeated the Washington Capitals with a 5-3 victory on Tuesday night in Saint Paul.
The Wild picked up their 3rd straight win as they got back to .500 at 21-21-5 on the season. Joel Eriksson Ek also had a goal and an assist as the Wild saw 11 different skaters register a point, emerging from losing 8 of their last 9 games.
Wild head coach John Hynes said that "I really liked the mindset that we came home with coming off the road, and the style of game that we need to be able to play. And just the consistency of it was important for us to be able to get to that game tonight, and I thought we did a pretty good job of it."
The Wild got on the board early in the game. Brock Faber got the scoring started 1:37 into the game to make it a 1-0 game with assists from Marco Rossi and Mats Zuccarello. At the 4:42 mark of the first period, the Wild doubled the lead to 2-0 as Foligno scored his 8th goal of the season, assisted by Eriksson Ek and Matt Boldy.
When the second period got underway, it was more of the same for the Wild. Johansson scored 6:28 into the period to push the Wild lead to 3-0 on his 7th goal of the season with the lone assist going to Zach Bogosian. Later in the period, Anthony Mantha got the Capitals on the board, scoring his 13th goal of the season to make it a 3-1 game.
Eriksson Ek scored 1:37 into the 3rd period for the Wild to make it 4-1 on his 20th goal of the season. At the 13:39 mark of the period, Johansson scored his second of the night to make it a 5-1 lead.TJ Oshie scored on the power play for the Capitals to make it 5-2 before Mantha's second of the game cut the deficit to 5-3.
Foligno said of his goal that "I think everyone kept staking around and I was kind of alone, and I just thought, ‘I have time.' I don’t think Kuemps really saw it. I think too much traffic in front of him, and he’s kind of looking at Boldy, like maybe it was up in the air or something. And I was able to drop it, and it did stick a little bit; it didn’t go in. I was able to whack in to get it in before it crossed the goal line."
Getting the start in net for the Wild was Filip Gustavsson, who improved to 13-11-2 with his 3rd straight win. Gustavsson stopped 30 of the 33 shots he was tested with, giving him a .909 save percentage.
It was Darcy Kuemper who got the start for the Capitals, taking the loss to drop to 11-11-2 in 23 starts. Kuemper turned aside 25 out of the 30 shots on goal the Wild sent his way, recording a .833 save percentage.
Capitals head coach Spencer Carbery said of the loss that "We certainly can help ourselves and try to start or get the first goal. We've talked about that all year. It's really important to us, a low-scoring team and a team that doesn't score a bunch 5-on-5, that puts us in a really difficult spot right out of the gate."
The Capitals travel to face the Colorado Avalanche on Wednesday as they finish a back to back with Charlie Lindgren set to draw the start. The Wild host the Nashville Predators on Thursday night, with Gustavsson the projected starter.
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