Wild even series with Blues behind Kirill Kaprizov hat trick
Kirill Kaprizov's hat trick led the Minnesota Wild to a runaway 6-2 victory in Game 2 of their best-of-seven series against the St. Louis Blues.
The win evens the series 1-1 going into Game 3 Friday night in St. Louis.
Kaprizov scored with less than a minute left in the first period and then scored a pair of goals in the third period to boost Minnesota's lead from 4-2 to 6-2. His goal to make it 5-2 came on a beautiful feed from Mats Zuccarello, while he finished off the hat trick when the Blues pulled their goal with more than seven minutes to play.
𝙃𝙀𝙔, 𝙈𝙐𝙎𝙏 𝘽𝙀 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙈𝙊𝙉𝙀𝙔!! 🤑🤑#ItsAboutWinning | #MNWILD pic.twitter.com/TowdE5CzUD
— Bally Sports North (@BallySportsNOR) May 5, 2022
Ironically, Kaprizov completed his hat trick 49 seconds after Joel Eriksson Ek's third goal of the night was erased when a review found Marcus Foligno offsides.
Dean Evason begged the Wild to "stay out of the crap" and "suck it up" if the Blues took cheap shots. Minnesota didn't retaliate to any St. Louis post-whistle aggression, but they were still called for seven penalties that led to five Blues power plays.
The difference from Game 1 was that St. Louis capitalized on just one of those power plays, whereas the Blues scored twice on the power play in Game 1 in addition to another goal just one second after another power play had ended.
Minnesota hammered the Blues in the first period, getting a goal from Eriksson Ek with 10:27 left in the period. Freddy Gaudreau slammed home a rebound in front of the net on a power play to go up 2-0, and Kaprizov netted a power play goal to make it 3-0. Eriksson Ek's second of the night put Minnesota up 4-0 just 51 seconds into the second period.
The offensive firepower was plenty for Marc-Andre Fleury, who responded in vintage fashion after giving up four goals in a Game 1 loss. Fleury made 32 saves, only surrendering goals on a difficult rebound in the second period and then getting beat by a Vladimir Tarasenko wrist shot early in the third period.
Game 3 is 8:30 p.m. Friday and will be televised on Bally Sports North and TNT.
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.