Wild’s Kirill Kaprizov hits 100-point mark in rout of Seattle

An enthusiastic crowd of 19,047 available at Xcel Vitality Middle on Friday night time totally anticipating to see the Wild manhandle the lowly Seattle Kraken to achieve a team-record 50 wins on the season was not within the temper to cope with an early 2-0 Kraken lead.

By the point six minutes and 52 seconds had elapsed within the second interval, all had been forgiven.

That’s when Kirill Kaprizov redirected a move from Kevin Fiala into the again of the online for his forty fifth purpose of the season to provide the Wild a 3-2 lead. The mini-crisis had been averted, and the celebration was again on monitor.

The Wild then threw in a pair extra crew information for the followers’ troubles as they turned a five-goal second interval right into a head-spinning 6-3 victory.

Fiala adopted his two-goal sport on Thursday with a team-record 5 assists in opposition to the Kraken. And when Kaprizov assisted on Ryan Hartman’s purpose to provide the Wild a 4-2 lead he grew to become the primary participant in crew historical past to provide a 100-point season.

Extra importantly, the victory pushed the Wild two factors forward of the St. Louis Blues within the quest for home-ice benefit within the first spherical of the playoffs.

“It’s an enormous accomplishment,” Kaprizov mentioned by an interpreter of reaching 100 factors. An enormous thanks to the followers, my teammates, the group. Clearly, it’s an enormous accomplishment. I’m extraordinarily grateful and blissful. Clearly getting the crew win was tremendous vital and made the whole lot that rather more candy.”

The Wild scored three power-play targets, with Kaprizov and Fiala teaming up on performs that bordered on being magical.

“Typically you catch your self watching them,” mentioned Joel Eriksson Ek, who scored two targets and added an help. “Even on the bench, once you see Kevin play with this a lot confidence, when he doesn’t actually stress about issues, he’s so good. You watch him and go ‘Oh, my God. How can he try this?’

“It’s actually spectacular for him, when he has this confidence. He doesn’t actually drive performs, and that’s when he performs his finest.”

All on an evening that started off in a really surprising means.

Six minutes into the sport, goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury misplayed a dump-in, and Seattle’s Daniel Sprong was the beneficiary, sliding the puck right into a wide-open web off a centering feed.

A slick give-and-go passing play led to a purpose by Seattle’s Yanni Gourde and a 2-0 Kraken lead at 10:20 of the interval.

The Wild minimize the deficit in half earlier than the primary interval ended with a power-play purpose by Eriksson Ek, who scored from the slot after taking a contact move from Kaprizov. He added his second purpose of the sport two minutes into the second interval to drag the Wild even.

“We didn’t suppose we have been unhealthy within the first,” Wild coach Dean Evason mentioned. “We simply thought they have been actually good. However the group regrouped, and we have been in a position to come out with an actual good second interval.”

BRIEFLY

Mats Zuccarello left the sport with a decrease physique harm within the second interval. Evason mentioned it doesn’t look like critical, however Zuccarello is not going to journey with the crew to Nashville.

With the win, the Wild prolonged their factors streak to 9 video games and their dwelling factors streak to 13 video games.

Fiala prolonged his factors streak to 9 video games (9 targets, 12 assists).

Tyson Jost was again within the lineup for the Wild after lacking three video games as a consequence of a decrease physique harm. He centered the fourth line and picked up an help.