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Wild get first win on Kirill Kaprizov's overtime winner

Vancouver has blown the lead and lost all five games to start the season.

Joe Nelson

Wild get first win on Kirill Kaprizov's overtime winner
Wild get first win on Kirill Kaprizov's overtime winner /

Winless no more. 

Kirill Kaprizov put the Minnesota Wild in the win column for the first time this season when he scored the game-winning goal in overtime for a 4-3 victory Thursday night in St. Paul. 

Kaprizov netted the winning goal when the Wild had a 4-on-3 advantage after Kaprizov drew a penalty. Minnesota maintained possession of the puck and the delayed penalty gave Kaprizov enough time to rip a shot into the back of the net to stop a three-game slide to start the season. Kaprizov finished with a goal and two assists. 

Regardless of the outcome, the most important result may have been goalie Marc-Andre Fleury returning to form. Fleury allowed 11 goals in four periods to start the season but was on point against the Canucks with 23 saves. Of the three goals he allowed, two were forgivable and he made a number of highlight-reel saves. 

The Wild dominated the first six minutes of the game, keeping the puck for the majority of that stretch in the offensive zone. The pressure led to a goal from Mats Zuccarello 4:37 into the opening period, only to have the Canucks come back with a pair of goals – Bo Harvat at 7:58 and Nils Harman at 16:47 – to take a 2-1 lead. 

Sam Steel's second goal in a Wild uniform tied the score 2-2 at the 19:00 mark. 

Minnesota, without Jordan Greenway to start the second period because of an upper-body injury sustained in his first game back from offseason shoulder surgery, fell behind 3-2 when Vancouver's Dakota Joshua flipped in a goal after a pair of brilliant saves by Marc-Andre Fleury. 

Zuccarello is already up to four goals on the season while Kaprizov and Calen Addison have racked four and five assists, respectively. 

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Joe Nelson
JOE NELSON

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. 

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