Kirill Kaprizov had two goals and an assist, Filip Gustavsson made 28 saves and the Minnesota Wild defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-3 on Friday night.
Joel Eriksson Ek, Matt Boldy and Brock Faber also scored for the Wild, who have won six of their last seven.
Brayden Point, Jake Guentzel and Nick Paul scored for the Lightning, who posted a four-game win streak. Victor Hedman had two assists and Andrei Vasilevskiy finished with 17 saves.
With the score tied 2-2 in the third period, the puck bounced off Kaprizov and into the net after Marco Rossi put a point shot into the crease with 5:23 to go.
Boldy pushed the lead to 4-2 with an empty-netter 2:20 later, before Paul got the Lightning back within one with 2:26 to go. Kaprizov sealed the win with an empty-netter with 29 seconds left, giving him a team-leading 21 points on the season.
Lightning: Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper opted to pull Vasilevskiy with more than 3 minutes remaining, and Boldy promptly scored to extend the Wild’s lead.
Wild: It was Minnesota’s first home game since Oct. 12. After going 5-1-1 on a season-long, seven-game road trip, the Wild defeated the Lightning for the second time in eight days.
With 12:48 left in the second period, Rossi briefly appeared to give the Wild a 2-1 lead. However, Rossi had the wrong puck. Another puck had inadvertently ended up behind the Tampa Bay net. After firing a shot off the end boards, Rossi picked up the second puck as Tampa Bay skated the opposite direction with the right one. After a short evaluation, the score remained the same.
Tampa Bay defeated Minnesota 30-22, including 15-6 in the first period. The Wild also blocked 18 shots.
Minnesota hosts Toronto on Sunday.
