Wild, Bruins battle it out in overtime thriller
A loss in Pittsburgh followed by a game in Boston the next night was a recipe for disaster, but Marc-Andre Fleury and the resilient Minnesota Wild weren’t having it.
It was an overtime thriller Tuesday night, a back-and-forth affair that was ended when Joel Eriksson found Kirill Kaprizov for a one-timer and the game-winning goal, his second of the night in the 4-3 victory.
KAPRIZOV CALLS GAME 🔥
— Spittin' Cap™️ (@SpittinCap) December 20, 2023
Franchise-record 7th OT goal for Kirill Kaprizov
What a straight banger of a game the Bruins & Wild gave us😤#mnwild #NHLBruins pic.twitter.com/hoXVPOd35M
Trailing 2-1 late in the third period, Kaprizov buried a juicy rebound after Jake Middleton’s shot hit the post to tie the game with 6:38 remaining.
Just shy of two minutes later Ryan Hartman gobbled up a blocked shot in front of the net and flipped it past goalie Linus Ullmark for the go-ahead goal.
Boston, 10-2-2 at home before the Wild arrived, weren’t done yet.
Alex Goligoski went to the box with 2:31 to play for high-sticking and the Bruins took advantage of a chaotic scrum in front of Fleury as Brad Marchand found the puck in a mess of bodies and fired it into the upper-left corner of the net for the tying goal with 1:06 remaining.
What a chaotic goal lol, Marchand ties it 3-3. pic.twitter.com/fjcMDheqNa
— Mr. Tenkrat (@PeterTenkrat) December 20, 2023
Fleury made 39 saves in regulation and finished the night with 40 and his 549th career win, moving him within two of Patrick Roy for second in NHL history.
Minnesota played without two of their top defensemen in Jonas Brodin (arm) and Jared Spurgeon (day to day), and one of their best forwards in Mats Zuccarello (week to week) — and they later lost Vinni Lettieri to injury — but they still battled to the bitter end.
Marcus Johansson scored the first goal of the night for Minnesota and David Pastrnak scored his 18th and 19th goals of the season for the Bruins. Pastrnak had 11 shots on goal in the game.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.